Lampard understands Terry’s passionate speech but calms reports of England rift

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Lampard calms latest rumors of England rift

RUSTENBURG, South Africa — Frank Lampard sought to calm the latest rumors of discord within the England team Monday, trying to divert everyone’s minds to beating Slovenia to stay in the World Cup.

The midfielder said that John Terry’s emotional talk of a team meeting with coach Fabio Capello after England’s abysmal performance in a 0-0 draw with Algeria was the center back’s way of hitting problems “head on.”

But Lampard denied it was a heated meeting with Capello, and stressed that all the players were behind the Italian coach.

“I understand what John is saying because he’s passionate,” Lampard said. “He’s like that as a player. All 23 players deal with things differently. Some people don’t want to say too much, some people want to hit things head on. Everyone appreciates that.

“The messages I got yesterday from people was that John was saying some positive things. I think we will try and hit things head on on the training ground.”

England is on the brink of going out of the World Cup in the opening round for the first time since 1958 after draws with the United States and Algeria. The English need to beat Slovenia in Port Elizabeth on Wednesday to ensure themselves a spot in the round of 16.

The latest problem to hit England’s beleaguered team is the fallout from comments by Terry that some players had their own meeting to discuss grievances with team management. There were reports in the British media Monday that the former captain’s teammates had told him to keep quiet.

“I don’t think anyone really likes to give away much about meetings. They are an in-house thing,” Lampard said. “Really the manager just spoke. We watched the Algeria game, which we all know was a disappointing performance. We addressed that game, the manager addressed that.

“It’s been completely overdone about a crisis meeting.”

But Terry also said that, after the game in Cape Town, some of the players talked over the match between themselves.

Although he did not reveal exactly what they said, some media reported they decided to tell Capello the team needed to play with a 4-5-1 instead of 4-4-2 formation, with Wayne Rooney up front on his own and Joe Cole added to the midfield.

The reports said that the rest of the players were furious with Terry for revealing details of the meeting, which appeared to undermine Capello’s running of the team.

Cappello also said he was disappointed with Terry.

“This is the big mistake, this is the very big mistake,” Capello said Monday in an interview with British TV channel ITV1. “My door is always open. If people want to speak with me, they can speak with me.

“Every time we have a meeting, I ask the captain: ‘Problems? You want to say something?’ Never. Then I read yesterday that John Terry said this. I don’t understand why he doesn’t speak with me. When you speak you have to speak privately, not with the media.”

After the match against Algeria, England players were booed by their own fans.

Because heavy rain has left the playing surface at Nelson Mandela Stadium in poor condition, England and Slovenia will not be able to train on it Tuesday. England said it will stay behind at its training camp in Rustenburg to hold its training session there and fly to Port Elizabeth later in the day.