The Last Word: Disgraced Terry must not go to World Cup. It is a Bridge too far

Terry should have resigned as England captain by now and the smart money says he won't go to South Africa (PA)

John Terry should not captain England at the World Cup finals. All those who still harbour any doubts about this may be persuaded otherwise when the red tops hit the mats this morning. The question should be whether the Chelsea defender even plays in the World Cup. "No" appears the shrewd bet today.

Of course, time is a great healer and come June the outrage which has greeted his disgrace could be but a mere disgruntlement drowned out by the fireworks of the festival. But time does have a lot of sewing and stitching to undertake in her operating theatre. The problem won't be making John Terry look human again in front of the public. It will be to make JT seem like one of the boys again in front of the team.

This is the crux of the matter and will render all those "privacy" arguments not worth the great moral parchment they are written on. This isn't an ethical debate but a football debate. Although to Fabio Capello the two will doubtless overlap and become confused over the forthcoming months, weeks, days or, who knows, even hours as yet more lurid details are consumed. Ultimately, however, the football argument will win.

To be straightforward about this, Terry has slept with his best mate's missus. That's how the story has already been recounted the world over. How he did it, how he tried to cover it up and how he was finally ratted on by a judge who could see through all that ego and self-interest. And what will make the tale appear immeasurably more damning in the dressing room is that JT's "best mate" happened to be one of their "best mates" and even worse, happened to be one of them. That nice guy, Wayne Bridge.

"How could JT do it to him?" will go the inner voice when the floodlights switch off. "If JT could do it to him, he could do it to me." "He's not going near my missus." "And he told us we had to die for each other."

What is frankly laughable is the notion he could still captain England, still command enough respect in the unit to demand they look into their own individuality and hand over everything they have to the common cause. That's what being a team is, a band of brothers, however corny that may sound to the intellectuals. Vince Lombardi, the gridiron legend, probably put it best. "Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another."

Will anyone in the England squad love Terry now? Indeed, will any member of the England squad at Chelsea love Terry now? Or will they at last see him as an individual obsessed with his own glory, his own self-gratification, no matter what, or who, he is screwing? These must be the alerts flashing around the Capello cranium. After all, a disruptive influence is the worst sort of influence. A gaping hole in a defence can be repaired; a gaping division is not so easily fixed.

Sure, teams have prevailed before despite ghastly personal conflicts. But not wearing the Three Lions. Any prospect of England success in South Africa is based on the power of the collective. It will not happen without everyone pulling together in the same direction. A yank this way, a break of the bond that way and that is it. Over.

Yet even if Capello does decide that Terry's colossal talents are worth all the aggro, that intense media scrutiny, those front pages, it won't end there. What about Bridge? This is where basic ethics will figure in Fabio's dilemma, a dilemma which may be unprecedented in football management.

Nobody could or would deny Bridge the right to feel uncomfortable in Terry's presence. In fact, the very idea of sharing, for nigh on two months, the same team hotel, the same team bus, the same food, the same team ethos, the same laughs, the same tears, must seem unimaginable to Bridge right now. How would he be able to function in such a scenario, even as a fringe squad member?

The truth is, it would be perceived as impossible. Capello will know this – one must go. So does he drop Bridge for the usual footballing reasons – i.e. Terry is by far the more important player? Or does he consider how the rest may react? Wouldn't Bridge be seen as a multiple victim, as a man who was not only stabbed in the back by his best friend but who had also lost his World Cup dream because of Terry's treachery? How's that for a double whammy? Whichever way the England squad looks at it, that plainly isn't fair. And believe me, they, like the rest of us, will look at this tawdriest of sagas each and every way. Only to them it will be deeply personal.

Terry should have already resigned as England captain. From a playing perspective the only hope he has is to patch things up with Bridge. Who knows, perhaps the dynamic of their relationship will allow such a reconciliation. It's a long shot and even if it comes in it might still not be enough. All of Terry's previous misdemeanours are busily being stacked and the resulting mountain has the power to shift the most unconditional of faiths. The snowball is rolling, the fire hydrant has burst...

Indeed, if Terry wants to see how quickly it will all tumble down, he only need type "Tiger Woods" into Google. If he probes still further he will learn that the old "appearance versus reality" conundrum has possessed the most jaw-dropping, dramatic effect since before Shakespeare's day. Maybe this is what Capello was alluding to when uttering those prophetic words about Terry: "Nobody is untouchable." Yet someone should have remained untouchable. A team-mate's partner. For the footballing superstar with everything, there's at least one thing that remains off limits. As ever, that forbidden fruit will prove so costly.

Letter of the week

The Gary Neville article was over the top. Sure Neville has had his moments over the years, celebrating in front of Liverpool and City fans and flicking Carlos Tevez the bird, but keep it in perspective. Look at last week. Rio Ferdinand punches a Hull player, William Gallas takes out a Bolton player with a potentially career-ending tackle, Craig Bellamy and Tevez get away with feet-off-the-ground tackles in the Manchester derby. Now if an outsider were to look at all these instances, do you think they would give Neville's behaviour a second thought?

Derek Carr

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