The John Terry Near you

The story as I read is that John Terry had a fling with the lady who was ex-girlfriend to Wayne Bridge – a fellow footballer, who currently plays for Man City FC, used to be JT’s team mate at Chelsea and has always been his team mate in the national team. So we can say the young man JT had a fast one with his friend’s woman! Yes, it sounds as terrible as everyone wants to make it sound, especially when we’re made to feel like our opinion counts, what we now have is too many people with worse sins being the first to cast stones. I am not about to glorify infidelity or support cheating husbands here but for me, reading the news of John Terry’s affair with lingerie model Venessa Parroncel, my honest reaction was just not going to be joining the public expostulation and crucifixion that followed it but simply “wetin be my own”?

To say JT is important to club and country is an understatement, that guy sometimes looks like the backbone of both teams, not only is he a very sharp, strong and dependable defender but one of the most psychologically stable footballers playing today, he knows how to score goals and is also hardly injured! He epitomizes what a footballer should be; he is an inspiration to many, a role model and a fan’s favorite. Wayne Bridge is not as popular as JT but he is almost as important to his team as JT is to his. He is second only to Ashley Cole in the national team for the left back position, which also explains why he left the role for the same guy at Chelsea and pitched his tents at Manchester City having proven over time that he is of massive quality despite the low playing time of those days.

The focus of my thought is really not about the two footballers and their roles in the mess but has been the two coaches to whom John Terry owes his loyalty as a professional football player and their contrasting decisions. A certain coach Fabio Capello thinks JT’s libido is a disgrace, maybe to the English culture and therefore he is not worthy to be the captain of the National team he manages while coach Carlo Ancelloti thinks the immorality has nothing to do with his role as captain of Chelsea as long as he keeps churning out his 5 star performances for the team. Of course while most of y’all are busy expressing disgust at the guy that slept with his friend’s woman, Chelsea fans are like “so what”?

Really, why should Ancelloti be bothered about the entire hullabaloo when Bridge now plays for another club – a major rival club for that matter? Every opposing player in the league can be demoralized, injured or even jailed for all he cares, as long as the ones in Chelsea remain psyched up. Besides, the immediate effects of the wahala was going to tell on his own ongoing FA cup, Premier League and Champion’s league campaign, so even if he is the most irritated by JT’s infidelity, he was always going to be solidly behind his man and never go the way of the world– sharp guy! Fabio Cappelo isn’t any better; he had only one thing on mind while making his own decision to demote JT – team selection and success at the world cup. The mood in the dressing room must have been his first worry with Wayne Bridge his next most regular left back feeling betrayed and other national team players (especially outside Chelsea FC) also disappointed in their captain, which naturally could affect the harmony in the team. Even if his decision to take the captain’s band from Terry was going to turn out being an error, good thing is (unlike Ancelloti) he had no match coming up, plus he had 5 months before the world cup to fix things – patapata he’ll call a “reconciliation” meeting; either ways he has the loyalty of over half of the team and still looks like the good wise manager he wants to be seen as. Now with the long term injury to first choice left-back Ashley Cole, hasn’t it turned out to be a good decision? Forget about the current loss of interest, Bridge might just be playing his best ever for England at the world cup, Cappelo deserves it! Don’t worry about Terry; he is just like William Gallas – a fighter! All pains will heal before the world cup, except he finds the love of his wife impossible to regain which as at the last time I checked was looking good.

I won’t be deceived into thinking Ancelloti is on JT’s side or Cappelo now detests him. Ironically they are both Italians, so this obviously also has nothing to do with culture. It therefore irritates me how many people castigate John Terry simply because the British press, their FA and national team coach seem to be disappointed too, because he’s the guy on TV? You don’t wanna start counting how many relationships and marriages are broken or suffering in silence today because a certain boyfriend or husband found out his friend, brother, colleague, neighbour or room-mate once dated, had a one-off or has been chasing his wife or girlfriend. Such bad guys are not crucified but John Terry everybody wants to kill. The usual story; “he should know he is a role model and a lot of people look up to him”. How about leaving the guys on TV alone and by yourself be a role model to your kids and younger ones? Especially those of you that run after every skirt and wrapper and it doesn’t matter if such skirts and wrappers belong to another guy, even your friend and family! Do not expect every celebrity to come shedding tears before a media conference apologizing “for letting you down”.

Well, its not like my opinion really matters in John Terry’s case, Stamford Bridge isn’t my studio and I’m not JT’s fan, I only started liking him after he missed that penalty to gift Man U and new English captain Rio Ferdinand the champion’s league to the joy of us Arsenal fans, so obviously I’m also not a Chelsea fan either and the English team definitely falls behind the Dutch and Nigerian teams for me, and no matter how much we humans enjoy trying to justify our selfish myopic sentiment with some boring tales about being principled, in my opinion, whatever decisions were made by these two coaches has nothing to do with upholding any values or discipline as anyone might want to make me believe. They simply went for their own interest as no one really has the moral rights to condemn the so called “bad guy”. Like Carlo Ancelloti said “he didn’t kill anybody” I say let everyone live his life and free the guy.