Chelsea captain John Terry says he has not been fully fit for five years, but admits the pain of losing the England captaincy hurts more than any injury.
Missing armband: John Terry was stripped of England's captaincy before the World Cup in South Africa.
In a wide-ranging interview, Terry discusses the England captaincy, Fabio Capello, his World Cup 'mutiny' and his fears for the future. Here are the highlights
On losing the England captaincy:
Terry was acrimoniously stripped of the captaincy before the World Cup after allegations over and affair with the girlfriend of one-time England team-mate Wayne Bridge.
Terry was acrimoniously stripped of the captaincy before the World Cup after allegations over and affair with the girlfriend of one-time England team-mate Wayne Bridge.
"I understood the decision at the time. Fabio said he wanted to take the spotlight off me, although if I am honest I thought it had the reverse effect. But I would never dislike him for that. He is the manager, he lives by his decisions," Terry told the Daily Mail.
"People presume we fell out, but there was no shouting and screaming the day he told me. I accepted it. I said to Fabio I would continue to train and play exactly as I had before, then we shook hands and that was it. I'm not saying it was a good day. Only the penalty miss for Chelsea in the Champions League final hurt as much, but we have moved on."
"I suppose the only time I felt disappointed was during the next game against Egypt, which was a friendly, and the armband got passed around between five or six players. I just felt, 'OK, I've been stripped of the captaincy, but don't take the p*** out of me'. Fabio had told me at the meeting that I was still a big voice in the dressing room and he wanted that to continue, but on the night it felt the opposite."
"Had I got the armband third, even fourth, I would have been happy, but Steven Gerrard was captain and first he went off, then Frank Lampard got it, and then Lamps went off and they gave it to Gareth Barry, and then he went off and it was anybody's. I think they would have given it to one of the stewards ahead of me. Even if it was a friendly, we were still there to win and you should put your best people in charge."
"People might not like to hear this, but I just thought it was a little disrespectful. I had no choice but to get on with it, though. That is how I feel now. I don't envisage I will be captain again, but for two England managers, Steve McClaren and Fabio Capello, I was their first choice and I'm proud of that."
When was he last fit?
Terry recently revealed that the chronic nerve complaint in his legwhich has sidelined him had lbeen a long-term problem.
"Maybe five years, maybe more, I can't really remember. If you can take an anti-inflammatory and struggle through, you do. A lot of players would tell you that, and it happens most weeks. Games are not so bad because the adrenaline keeps you going, but training on a daily basis when every time you move it hurts, that is a real battle.
"The pain from this injury is the worst I have had, there is no way I can continue, but even on Sunday against Sunderland as the goals were going in, I was thinking, 'If I had played one more game, could I have made a difference?' I know a lot of people thought I was just ducking out of England but would be back to play for Chelsea against Birmingham City, but no. I'm 30 next month and I've got to start looking after myself."
Bloody-mindedness and a bloody ankle:
The demands Jose Mourinho made of Chelsea's last team of champions helped form Terry's body-on-the-line style of defending.
"At the end of the 2005-06 season, on the day Chelsea won the title, when Rooney's stud found its way into Terry's ankle. Despite a 3-0 win over Manchester United, Mourinho would not let his captain leave the field.
"It was pouring with blood. I had 10 stitches at half-time and an injection to numb it. I didn't really want to go off, but every now and then I'd have a sly look at the bench, thinking he might want to take me off because we were winning well by then.
"He wouldn't even look at me. Didn't give me the time of day. He was in one of those moods - 'Nobody can beat us, nobody can compete with us, nobody can mess with our heads'.
"By the end, I had the same attitude. I took pride in staying on. I thought, 'I'm going to get through this, I'm going to be there right until the end'. But by then I was out of it. I couldn't walk, I could barely stand up."
On a throwaway comment:
Before the 2008 Champions League final Terry boasted about his willingness to put his body on the line, saying that he didn't mind "counting his medals in a wheelchair."
"It's funny, I was reading what I said about ending up in a wheelchair the other day and I thought to myself, 'You know mate, that's probably not your best plan'. I still say if the ball is there to be won I will go for it, whether with my head or whatever, and if it means us scoring or stopping a goal, I won't think twice. But counting my medals in a wheelchair? I'd rather play with my kids in the garden, thank you very much. I hope people will appreciate that. I'd like to rethink the wheel-chair idea, please."
On the 2010 World Cup:
Poor performances on the pitch and gossip about players' private lives led to an intense focus on England's trainnig camp in Rustenberg - a situation Terry claims was worsened by the strictness of life under Capello's watchful eye.
"It was quite boring at the camp in South Africa. It was probably the best facility at the tournament, but there is a reason you don't go away to the same resort for three weeks in the summer. After a while, the same view, the same food, the same room, you want to break it up. Even the training pitch was only 100 yards away from where we slept, and then we'd be in our rooms until dinner at 7.30pm.
"Sure, we had stuff there, computers, darts tournaments, snooker tournaments, but after a week or so it became frustrating. There was a lot of time between matches and we were sitting around dwelling on our performances, on individual mistakes, and it doesn't help. At a club the games come quicker. You think, 'Stuff it, let's win this next one and show them'. But those matches did not arrive soon enough for us.
"There were outside pressures, too. We drew with the United States and then the next training session all the press were there, the cameramen, the photographers and the players get completely intimidated by that.
"We were thinking, 'Better not laugh today or we'll be all over the front pages' - look at this lot giggling, they don't care - and that couldn't be further from the truth. So we can't smile because we think we'll be slated. We go back to the hotel and we're watching footage of Brazil and Argentina training on television and they're joking, smashing balls at each other, playing silly games.
"Meanwhile, we're scared to smile in case we get caught out. It's not healthy. If that was a Chelsea defeat it would be gone, forgotten, a bit of banter and on we go again. But not England. How can smiling be wrong? People think you are not focused if you look happy, but it doesn't help to have 10 million people watching your every move. Maybe without that we would have done better, because we could put things to bed.
"You must have the balance between being serious as you get closer to the game and keeping it light through the week. You need that balance.
"Trust your players; that is all I think. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but two days before a match over here I will be at the park with my kids, or taking them for an ice cream, so there is room to relax before matches. Then you get your game head on by Friday, and don't want to see or hear from anybody else."
On Fabio Capello:
Despite the issue of the captaincy and England's poor performance in South Africa, Terry speaks highly of the England manager.
"He has a very Italian style, but is really switched on, his training sessions are always interesting. Suddenly, he will stop and dig someone out, so he's a little bit scary, like Jose Mourinho.
"There is nothing worse than that moment when everything freezes. You just hope it is not you about to be picked on in front of the other 22 players, but he doesn't care who it is. You hear this scream - "No!" - and then he'll explain, 'I told you to do it like this...'
"He is always on at defenders about when the cross comes in, opening your body, not standing square, keep checking your forward, simple things like that. We are all aware of positional play, but he drums it in, whenever we meet up, time and again. Now every goal I see, I can notice a defender ball-watching and not having his body open. Even goals we concede at Chelsea.
"We'll meet up with England and he'll mention one from three weeks ago and say, 'You were too square'. You've only just walked through the door but he doesn't forget a thing. You're thinking, 'S***, he's told me off and I haven't been here five minutes'. But he keeps you on your toes.
"He's got another thing about what to do when the keeper comes for a cross. At Chelsea, when that happens, Ashley Cole and I naturally tuck in behind and drop to the line to protect the goal.
"Capello goes mad if you do that. If we drop back just by instinct during an England game, you can guarantee it will be the first clip on the tape at the next meeting. 'Look, you are playing him onside now and him onside if he shoots. If the keeper does not catch it, that is his fault. I told you...'
"Sometimes I will do it during a game and even in that split-second think, 'S***, I'm in trouble now'. Sure enough, next tape, there it is. We've talked about it with him. Ashley cleared three off the line last year covering for Petr Cech, but he won't have it. 'I don't care,' he says, 'you're with England now'.
"It is nonsense about me not wanting to work with Capello. He is a great coach and I'm really disappointed not to have been around more this season. I played in the first friendly of the season even though I was struggling with injury because I thought it was important to show my face. I knew we were going to get booed, but I wanted to take it on the chin and move on and that's what we did."
On the World Cup press conference:
Terry was accused of trying to undermine Fabio Capello after he revealed in a press conference after England's draw to Algeria that the team would be having a crisis meeting with Capello before the next game.
"I think people didn't understand what I was saying at the World Cup, they saw it as a challenge to Fabio, as if I was trying to take over. But I wasn't shouting my mouth off. I was an England international who was possibly going to play his last World Cup game for his country that week. The same for Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, a lot of guys in that squad. We were in the last-chance saloon. Of course I was going to speak my mind in those circumstances.
"Yes, maybe I could have been a little more sensitive. The impression I got was that people were asking, 'Who does he think he is?' but at the time it happened the first reaction of a lot of people was that it needed to be said. Then, within 15 minutes, a positive had been turned into a negative and it was portrayed as an attempted coup.
"All I wanted was to talk about how we had been playing and where we could go from there. I wasn't trying to act as if I was still captain. You don't have to be captain to have an opinion. When I had the armband, i f someone had something to say, I would never think it undermined me. There can't only be one voice in a team. People stirred it and created problems that weren't there at a bad time for us, but I never had an issue with one of the players. At least, nobody came to me.
"I would deal with it and tell him, and I wouldn't talk behind his back. I remember Wayne Rooney visited my room and, for a young guy, said some really mature things about the situation. Steven Gerrard told me on the training field that he had no problem with what I'd said."
Away from the pitch:
"I'm quite soft and gentle away from football. People who don't know me, old ladies in the supermarket, often say they thought I would be more aggressive. They're surprised if I'm nice. I don't know what they think I'm going to do. Hit them with a two-footed tackle in the fruit and veg aisle, maybe.
"I suppose the only time I felt disappointed was during the next game against Egypt, which was a friendly, and the armband got passed around between five or six players. I just felt, 'OK, I've been stripped of the captaincy, but don't take the p*** out of me'. Fabio had told me at the meeting that I was still a big voice in the dressing room and he wanted that to continue, but on the night it felt the opposite."
"Had I got the armband third, even fourth, I would have been happy, but Steven Gerrard was captain and first he went off, then Frank Lampard got it, and then Lamps went off and they gave it to Gareth Barry, and then he went off and it was anybody's. I think they would have given it to one of the stewards ahead of me. Even if it was a friendly, we were still there to win and you should put your best people in charge."
"People might not like to hear this, but I just thought it was a little disrespectful. I had no choice but to get on with it, though. That is how I feel now. I don't envisage I will be captain again, but for two England managers, Steve McClaren and Fabio Capello, I was their first choice and I'm proud of that."
When was he last fit?
Terry recently revealed that the chronic nerve complaint in his legwhich has sidelined him had lbeen a long-term problem.
"Maybe five years, maybe more, I can't really remember. If you can take an anti-inflammatory and struggle through, you do. A lot of players would tell you that, and it happens most weeks. Games are not so bad because the adrenaline keeps you going, but training on a daily basis when every time you move it hurts, that is a real battle.
"The pain from this injury is the worst I have had, there is no way I can continue, but even on Sunday against Sunderland as the goals were going in, I was thinking, 'If I had played one more game, could I have made a difference?' I know a lot of people thought I was just ducking out of England but would be back to play for Chelsea against Birmingham City, but no. I'm 30 next month and I've got to start looking after myself."
Bloody-mindedness and a bloody ankle:
The demands Jose Mourinho made of Chelsea's last team of champions helped form Terry's body-on-the-line style of defending.
"At the end of the 2005-06 season, on the day Chelsea won the title, when Rooney's stud found its way into Terry's ankle. Despite a 3-0 win over Manchester United, Mourinho would not let his captain leave the field.
"It was pouring with blood. I had 10 stitches at half-time and an injection to numb it. I didn't really want to go off, but every now and then I'd have a sly look at the bench, thinking he might want to take me off because we were winning well by then.
"He wouldn't even look at me. Didn't give me the time of day. He was in one of those moods - 'Nobody can beat us, nobody can compete with us, nobody can mess with our heads'.
"By the end, I had the same attitude. I took pride in staying on. I thought, 'I'm going to get through this, I'm going to be there right until the end'. But by then I was out of it. I couldn't walk, I could barely stand up."
On a throwaway comment:
Before the 2008 Champions League final Terry boasted about his willingness to put his body on the line, saying that he didn't mind "counting his medals in a wheelchair."
"It's funny, I was reading what I said about ending up in a wheelchair the other day and I thought to myself, 'You know mate, that's probably not your best plan'. I still say if the ball is there to be won I will go for it, whether with my head or whatever, and if it means us scoring or stopping a goal, I won't think twice. But counting my medals in a wheelchair? I'd rather play with my kids in the garden, thank you very much. I hope people will appreciate that. I'd like to rethink the wheel-chair idea, please."
On the 2010 World Cup:
Poor performances on the pitch and gossip about players' private lives led to an intense focus on England's trainnig camp in Rustenberg - a situation Terry claims was worsened by the strictness of life under Capello's watchful eye.
"It was quite boring at the camp in South Africa. It was probably the best facility at the tournament, but there is a reason you don't go away to the same resort for three weeks in the summer. After a while, the same view, the same food, the same room, you want to break it up. Even the training pitch was only 100 yards away from where we slept, and then we'd be in our rooms until dinner at 7.30pm.
"Sure, we had stuff there, computers, darts tournaments, snooker tournaments, but after a week or so it became frustrating. There was a lot of time between matches and we were sitting around dwelling on our performances, on individual mistakes, and it doesn't help. At a club the games come quicker. You think, 'Stuff it, let's win this next one and show them'. But those matches did not arrive soon enough for us.
"There were outside pressures, too. We drew with the United States and then the next training session all the press were there, the cameramen, the photographers and the players get completely intimidated by that.
"We were thinking, 'Better not laugh today or we'll be all over the front pages' - look at this lot giggling, they don't care - and that couldn't be further from the truth. So we can't smile because we think we'll be slated. We go back to the hotel and we're watching footage of Brazil and Argentina training on television and they're joking, smashing balls at each other, playing silly games.
"Meanwhile, we're scared to smile in case we get caught out. It's not healthy. If that was a Chelsea defeat it would be gone, forgotten, a bit of banter and on we go again. But not England. How can smiling be wrong? People think you are not focused if you look happy, but it doesn't help to have 10 million people watching your every move. Maybe without that we would have done better, because we could put things to bed.
"You must have the balance between being serious as you get closer to the game and keeping it light through the week. You need that balance.
"Trust your players; that is all I think. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but two days before a match over here I will be at the park with my kids, or taking them for an ice cream, so there is room to relax before matches. Then you get your game head on by Friday, and don't want to see or hear from anybody else."
On Fabio Capello:
Despite the issue of the captaincy and England's poor performance in South Africa, Terry speaks highly of the England manager.
"He has a very Italian style, but is really switched on, his training sessions are always interesting. Suddenly, he will stop and dig someone out, so he's a little bit scary, like Jose Mourinho.
"There is nothing worse than that moment when everything freezes. You just hope it is not you about to be picked on in front of the other 22 players, but he doesn't care who it is. You hear this scream - "No!" - and then he'll explain, 'I told you to do it like this...'
"He is always on at defenders about when the cross comes in, opening your body, not standing square, keep checking your forward, simple things like that. We are all aware of positional play, but he drums it in, whenever we meet up, time and again. Now every goal I see, I can notice a defender ball-watching and not having his body open. Even goals we concede at Chelsea.
"We'll meet up with England and he'll mention one from three weeks ago and say, 'You were too square'. You've only just walked through the door but he doesn't forget a thing. You're thinking, 'S***, he's told me off and I haven't been here five minutes'. But he keeps you on your toes.
"He's got another thing about what to do when the keeper comes for a cross. At Chelsea, when that happens, Ashley Cole and I naturally tuck in behind and drop to the line to protect the goal.
"Capello goes mad if you do that. If we drop back just by instinct during an England game, you can guarantee it will be the first clip on the tape at the next meeting. 'Look, you are playing him onside now and him onside if he shoots. If the keeper does not catch it, that is his fault. I told you...'
"Sometimes I will do it during a game and even in that split-second think, 'S***, I'm in trouble now'. Sure enough, next tape, there it is. We've talked about it with him. Ashley cleared three off the line last year covering for Petr Cech, but he won't have it. 'I don't care,' he says, 'you're with England now'.
"It is nonsense about me not wanting to work with Capello. He is a great coach and I'm really disappointed not to have been around more this season. I played in the first friendly of the season even though I was struggling with injury because I thought it was important to show my face. I knew we were going to get booed, but I wanted to take it on the chin and move on and that's what we did."
On the World Cup press conference:
Terry was accused of trying to undermine Fabio Capello after he revealed in a press conference after England's draw to Algeria that the team would be having a crisis meeting with Capello before the next game.
"I think people didn't understand what I was saying at the World Cup, they saw it as a challenge to Fabio, as if I was trying to take over. But I wasn't shouting my mouth off. I was an England international who was possibly going to play his last World Cup game for his country that week. The same for Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, a lot of guys in that squad. We were in the last-chance saloon. Of course I was going to speak my mind in those circumstances.
"Yes, maybe I could have been a little more sensitive. The impression I got was that people were asking, 'Who does he think he is?' but at the time it happened the first reaction of a lot of people was that it needed to be said. Then, within 15 minutes, a positive had been turned into a negative and it was portrayed as an attempted coup.
"All I wanted was to talk about how we had been playing and where we could go from there. I wasn't trying to act as if I was still captain. You don't have to be captain to have an opinion. When I had the armband, i f someone had something to say, I would never think it undermined me. There can't only be one voice in a team. People stirred it and created problems that weren't there at a bad time for us, but I never had an issue with one of the players. At least, nobody came to me.
"I would deal with it and tell him, and I wouldn't talk behind his back. I remember Wayne Rooney visited my room and, for a young guy, said some really mature things about the situation. Steven Gerrard told me on the training field that he had no problem with what I'd said."
Away from the pitch:
"I'm quite soft and gentle away from football. People who don't know me, old ladies in the supermarket, often say they thought I would be more aggressive. They're surprised if I'm nice. I don't know what they think I'm going to do. Hit them with a two-footed tackle in the fruit and veg aisle, maybe.
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