Wayne Rooney will captain England for the first time against Brazil this evening if, as expected, John Terry becomes the ninth member of the first-choice starting line-up to drop out of the friendly match because of injury.
Terry suffered swelling to his Achilles tendon after blocking a shot from Jermaine Jenas during a training session in Doha and, with the Chelsea defender unlikely to be risked, Fabio Capello, the England manager, announced yesterday that he was preparing to entrust Rooney with the captaincy.
“I hope that John Terry will be fit,” Capello said. “The doctor has told me they have confidence that he will recover, so it’s possible that he will be fit, but if he’s not 100 per cent fit, he won’t play and the captain will be Rooney.
“I think Rooney is ready to be a captain. Why not? When you choose a player to be a captain, he has to be a leader in the dressing room or a leader on the pitch. For me, that’s really important. Rooney is always a leader on the pitch — less in the dressing room, but he’s young. He can be a leader in the dressing room also.
“The captain is John Terry. The vice-captain is Rio [Ferdinand] because they are really good on the pitch and really good in the dressing room. Right now I think we need one leader on the pitch because we are missing a lot of players. For this reason I will choose Rooney if John Terry is not playing.”
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Capello has long considered Rooney as a future option for the England captaincy, even though the 24-year-old, who has won 57 caps, has frequently been criticised for indiscipline on the pitch. Rooney was warned about his conduct by the FA this week for mouthing “12 men” into a television camera after Manchester United’s 1-0 defeat by Chelsea on Sunday, in frustration at the refereeing performance of Martin Atkinson. However, Capello defended the player’s temperament yesterday by referring to Sir Alex Ferguson being similarly frustrated.
“It was not only Rooney who was not happy,” Capello said. “He has to understand that the next game he will be focused because he will be the captain of the national team. Why should this be a problem? I remember the best players in the world — Pel?, [Johan] Cruyff, [Franz] Beckenbauer, [Michel] Platini — and they were captains. They scored goals, so why not? You have to be a leader on the pitch. All the best players were captains. They were also captains of the national teams. Diego Maradona is another example.”
Rooney is expected to be partnered in attack at the Khalifa International Stadium this evening by Darren Bent, with Capello eager to discover whether the Sunderland forward can stake a claim for a place in next summer’s World Cup squad. With only Rooney and Gareth Barry available of Capello’s first-choice starting line-up — unless Terry makes a dramatic recovery — Robert Green, Wes Brown, Matthew Upson, Wayne Bridge, Michael Carrick, Shaun Wright-Phillips and James Milner are expected to start.
Capello indicated that his main decision would come in the central defensive department if Terry is unfit, with Joleon Lescott and Gary Cahill competing for the right to deputise. Cahill, of Bolton Wanderers, has yet to make his international debut, but Capello is eager to assess him at some stage tonight and to take a second look at Stephen Warnock at left back.
The Aston Villa player’s previous England cap, in the friendly away to Trinidad & Tobago in June 2008, was curious on two counts: that he was the seventh England substitute in a match in which only six changes were permitted and that, having appeared only for the final six minutes, his is officially the shortest England career on record, something he hopes to address tonight.
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How they line up
Brazil (probable; 4-2-3-1): Júlio C?sar — Maicon, Lúcio, Thiago Silva, Michel Bastos — Josu?, Gilberto Silva — D Alves, Kak?, Nilmar — L Fabiano.
England (probable; 4-4-2): R Green — W Brown, M Upson, J Lescott, W Bridge — S Wright-Phillips, M Carrick, G Barry, J Milner — D Bent, W Rooney.
Referee: Abdulrahman Abdou (Qatar).