McClaren era under fire from stand-in skipper

10:26am Wednesday 15th October 2008

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ENGLAND stand-in skipper Rio Ferdinand has branded the pre-Fabio Capello era as a “circus” where players were more interested in WAGs than winning.

Ferdinand, who will wear the armband in Belarus where England look to make it four wins from four qualifiers, tore into the celebrity culture that peaked during the 2006 World Cup finals.

The squad stayed at Baden- Baden and were famously accompanied by their Wives And Girlfriends.

The Manchester United centre-back also took a swipe at Steve McClaren’s reign – where the boss wanted to appear pals with “Wazza” and “Stevie G” – by insisting there is no room for friendship with the manager.

Ferdinand can point to a change in results as a mark of how effective Capello has been. If England win at the Dinamo Stadium in Minsk it will be their best start to a World Cup qualifying campaign.

“We became a bit of a circus, if I’m honest, in terms of the whole WAG situation,”

Ferdinand said. “It seems like there was a big show around the whole England squad.

“It was like watching a theatre unfolding and football almost became a secondary element to the main event.

“People were worrying more about what people were wearing and where they were going, rather than the England football team.

“That then transposed itself into the team. This regime is very water-tight. If I’m honest, it feels as if we’re going in the right direction.

“I don’t want to speak too soon, but you can see we’re at the start of something and, hopefully, there’ll be bigger rewards than what we’ve had in the past.”

Ferdinand was known to be a player who preferred to stay at the hotel rather than get photographed in Baden- Baden, but he admits it was easy to get caught up in it.

“That’s said in hindsight,”

he admitted. “You were caught up in the bubble.

Being somewhere like Baden- Baden, walking around the town, there were paparazzi everywhere and we were among journalists as well, our families were there.

“When you step back and look back at that, you think like it was a circus.

“I’m not going to tell the other players what you should or should not do. But I just think that, as a squad, we were a bit too open, going out in and around Baden-Baden, and probably had too much contact with families.

“You don’t get many tournaments in your career. To give yourself the best chance, you have to be focused.”

After reaching the quarterfinals in Germany, England did not even reach Euro 2008 under McClaren.

Ferdinand has felt a significant shift in focus since Capello has taken over, comparing the current regime to the club mentality that has served English teams so well in the Champions League recently.

“It’s a very, very professional regime,” he said. “Very result- orientated. Very much like a lot of our clubs. The results come a long way before the performances.

“You see how he is on the training ground, in our meetings, that there’s a winning mentality there. That’s what he’s putting over to the squad he has in front of him.”

Ferdinand feels there is a healthy distance between the players and Capello, and an authority that was illustrated by the Italian holding a team meeting and methodically going through the mistake that led to Kazakhstan scoring in the 5-1 win on Saturday.

“Do you really know any managers? I don’t know the real Sir Alex Ferguson. When he comes to football, he’s probably a totally different person to when he’s at home.

“That doesn’t matter.

They’re not here to be buddies.

They’re here to win football matches.”

He added: “We’ve got a very business-like state of mind, and that’s come from the manager and the staff he’s got around.”