THE BREAKFAST CLUB
It is morning. The England squad wake up at the hour chosen by their leader and gather together for breakfast at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Complex, where they are astonished to find something missing from the buffet table. The full cereal selection is present and correct. There is bread, and toast, and yoghurt in a variety of flavours. On the hotplates sausages sizzle, bacon bubbles and soggy hot tomatoes sit sadly, untouched, unloved, weeping hot tomato juice from their gaping tomato wounds. But where are the eggs?
Lamps looks for the eggs. There are no eggs.
Wazza looks for the eggs. There are no eggs.
Jamo tries to find the eggs. There are no eggs.
Crouchy find the eggs. They are all over England's Brave and Loyal John Terry's face. EBALJT's face is so resoundingly egged, it is more egg than footballer. It is a footballer omelette. Some of the England squad look at their deposed captain and get confused. They think it's all pavlova.
EBALJT, the team's captain and leader if not officially then at least inside his own cloud-filled head, "I am a leader on the training ground, on the pitch and in the hotel, I was born to do this" etc etc is a humbled man. His plans are scrambled, his revolution over easy. He set up a clear-the-air meeting on Sunday where "the lads" would "do the best for England", but found that the only thing that became clear was his own place in the squad hierarchy some way from the top. As it turned out, the only voice heard at the meeting had an Italian accent. So badly did the meeting go for our trileonine hero, he had to call a journalist actually phone one up to say sorry. "It was never my intention to upset the manager or the players and if I did upset anyone, I apologise," he crumbled exclusively to another-paper-we-won't-mention-because-why-should-we-it-wasn't-us. "I have told the manager he has my total support."
And so Capello's reign of terror continues unsquashed, his power strengthened, his authority absolute.
For one more day, at least.
