David Beckham charity match: Rio Ferdinand will not be reunited with John Terry as former Manchester United defender suffers injury
Ferdinand has suffered a calf injury and has been forced to pull out of the Unicef match
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Your support makes all the difference.Rio Ferdinand will not be reunited with his former England centre-back partner John Terry after he was forced to pull out of David Beckham’s charity match this weekend with a calf injury.
Former Manchester United defender Ferdinand was due to line-up for the Great Britain and Ireland side that will contest this weekend’s Unicef charity match, set-up by his former team-mate Beckham. But the 37-year-old has been forced out of the match after picking up an injury, which will see him miss out on the game at Old Trafford.
The biggest talking point arising from Ferdinand’s inclusion though was the possibility of the former England captain lining up alongside Terry. The Chelsea skipper was on the receiving end of a four-match ban after the Football Association found him guilty of using abusive language towards Ferdinand’s brother, Anton, during a Premier League encounter between the Blues and Queens Park Rangers in October 2011.
Furthermore, Ferdinand’s England team-mate, Ashley Cole, gave evidence in a magistrates hearing on behalf of Terry, who was cleared of a racial abuse charge. Cole, still playing in Italy with Roma despite being frozen out of the side, is also due to play in the match and would have lined up alongside Ferdinand.
Ferdinand admitted in his autobiography that he would never be able to forgive Terry for what he did, while he added that Cole’s decision to support the Chelsea captain left him feeling “betrayed”.
“Three years later I find it impossible to forgive or forget the pain he (Terry) put my family through,” wrote Ferdinand last year.
Despite the broken relationship between the two former defensive partners, Ferdinand admitted earlier this year that he did still admire Terry’s ability on the pitch. The pair have 159 England caps between them, and at their peak the two formed one of England’s strongest ever defensive partnerships.
“When we were England centre backs, myself and John had an excellent defensive record together,” said Ferdinand. “I had a similar relationship with Sol Campbell for England and Nemanja Vidic at Manchester United.
“There's a reason why John and Nemanja have the type of noses they do and that's because they like to attack every ball.”
Ferdinand’s former United team-mates Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Michael Owen are all lined up to play in the sold-out charity match, while the rest of the world side taking them on will be managed by former Chelsea and Real Madrid head coach Carlo Ancelotti, with ex-France international Zinedine Zidane captaining the side.
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