Spit. It. Out.

Last week, in the Daily Star the so-called ‘Mr Chelsea,’ John Terry, has furiously denied spitting at Carlos Tevez during Wednesday night’s Champions League final after the Argentine forward accused him the following day. The incident took place during the same scuffle that saw professional waste-of-space Didier Drogba sent off for slapping Nemanja Vidic in the face. Terry said: “There was some pushing and shoving, I admit that. But no spitting, that is not my style. No way would I spit at another player.” So here’s some footage of it all then, kindly provided by The Spoiler, and if about 12 seconds in JT isn’t spitting/blowing his nose on Tevez, then what the hell is he doing?

Chelsea obviously deny everything, and have hired a crack-team of Ambulance-chasers to defend the aspiring England captain. UEFA spokesman William Gaillard told us: “The procedure is that we must wait for the report from the referee and UEFA delegates. If the referee says he saw the incident and that the player did not spit, then that will be the end of the matter. But if he says he did not see the incident, then we will go back to the video images.” If found guilty, Terry could face a three match European ban, with similar behaviour from Fransesco Totti and Sebastien Frey at Euro 2004 the precedents. This whole incident calls to mind a classic slice of 90s comedy which is shown below for your enjoyment. If you’ve never heard of JFK, or have had a sense of humour transplant, please ignore what follows:

Anyway, this controversy tops off what has been a not-exactly-great week for JT then, with a penalty miss plaguing him, and main rival Rio Ferdinand expected to be handed the permanent national captaincy before next week’s clash with the U.S. of A.

UPDATE - John Terry has written an open letter to Chelsea fans following the Champions League Final. The Chelsea captain wrote:

'To all the Chelsea fans, all my team-mates, the manager and staff at the club.
I am so sorry for missing the penalty and denying you the fans, my team-mates, family and friends the chance to become European champions.
Many people have told me I don't need to say that but I feel I need to, that's just me. I have relived that moment every minute since it happened. I have only slept a few hours and wake up every time hoping it's all been a bad dream.
I have had some amazing support from fans, current and ex-players, family and friends and I need to thank everyone for that. But I am a big man and I take responsibility for us not winning.

I am and ALWAYS will be Chelsea through and through. I will give my all on and off the pitch to win this trophy as a player and one day as a manager. And I am sure we will win it.
That night in Moscow will haunt me forever and I feel I have let everybody down and this hurts me more than anything. I am not ashamed about crying. This is a trophy I have tried so hard year after year to win and it was just an uncontrollable reaction, I wear my heart on my sleeve, everybody knows that.
The road to Rome starts here, we have to try and turn this experience to our advantage. I am very proud of how far we have come this season with everything that has gone on.
Thank you for all your support for the team this season.'

Paying the Penalty

Call it what you will… bottling it, cracking under pressure, choking…it all amounts to the same thing: history repeating itself. As both Tottenham and Everton crashed out of the UEFA Cup this week by losing a penalty shoot-out, it’s starting to become an actual curse of the British Isles, infecting even foreign-born players. In all, English clubs have won just nine out of 21 shootouts in major European club competitions, while at international level the success rate is embarrassingly even worse, with historically just one win (against Spain in the Euro ’96 quarter-finals) in six attempts. So why can’t we take penalties, it’s surely the easiest part of the game, especially for a professional footballer? People often call penalty shoot-outs a ‘lottery’ but this is obviously a misnomer, as it isn’t pure chance but just a test of nerve. With a stationary ball from 12 yards out, any goalkeeper in the world should not have a chance of saving a shot, so it is clearly down to mental strength and concentration; two of the key factors that footballers are paid so highly to maintain at all times. In front of the press last night, Everton captain Phil Neville spoke candidly about his feelings going into Wednesday’s shoot-out with Fiorentina:

“We just need to be a bit more mentally tough. I know I don’t enjoy penalties and wouldn’t give anyone advice on taking them, but it’s something we need to get better at. It comes at the end of 120 minutes and I think we have the mentality of ‘Oh, we couldn’t have done any more.’ But then we still have the penalties to take. That’s where we have to toughen up. They were going in in training but it’s easy to score penalties in training — you can’t recreate the real thing. But the bottom line is an English club has lost another penalty shootout and that’s something we definitely need to improve on.”

It’s interesting that he talks about mental exhaustion, because you would think that having both come back from first-leg deficits, the momentum and confidence would definitely have been on Spurs’ and Everton’s side. But as Neville says, the strain of that uphill struggle felt like a victory in itself, and at the crucial moment after 120 minutes, neither team could believe that they hadn’t done enough to win it already. It sounds ludicrous to suggest that motivation was a problem with a UEFA Cup quarter-final place at stake, but it seems that English teams just don’t have that edge to get them over the final hurdle.

Is it something you can teach though? The Germans and the Italians, for example, have that winning-mentality drilled into them at a young age, and they are used to fighting for success. With English players it seems almost too taboo a subject now, and as soon as game goes into extra-time even, you can almost see the mist of comprehension of what’s ahead descend over the team. Part of being a professional, in any field, is overcoming the mentality that you can’t do something, whether it be delivering a public presentation or taking a penalty. There is always expectation, nerves, excitement, fear of failure, the desire to prove yourself, and most importantly, a stigma to subvert.

After all this time, a penalty shoot-out for an Englishman should be a matter of pride, and dictated by a desire to succeed, but instead what we find are guys under to take the pressure. The experienced Steed Malbranque, for example, has been publicly castigated by many Spurs fans this week for opting to not take a penalty, leaving defender Pascal Chimbonda to put his head on the block. You play football in the first place to essentially see how high a level you can handle; find yourself in the professional circuit and surely you live for European Cup, or international, glory? As the old saying goes, to be the best, you have to beat the best. If that means in open play, great; but if it means through penalties, then that should be fine too. As a nation we need to place more emphasis on relishing the challenge of playing in the true upper echelons of the European game and the spoils of success, rather than a continuation of the doom-and-gloom pessimism of failure.