Whenever mistakes start creeping into his game, he is hit by the old, familiar accusations about carelessness and a lackadaisical attitude. “It annoys me when people go on about that,” he said. “People say that it looks like I don’t care, but nothing could be further from the truth. The way I play is not affected, not put on, it’s entirely natural to me, and I can’t change it to make people think I care more. If I could, maybe I would.
“The other thing that gets said is that it all comes too easily to me, but that’s not the case either. Inside, I have to work as hard as anybody else. I’ll tell you how I’ve had to change. When I was young at West Ham, I’d come off after losing 3-2 and one of the goals we’d conceded might have been my fault, but I’d be talking about how I’d taken on the centre-forward. Now my first thought is, ‘Great, we’ve kept a clean sheet’, or if we’ve won 3-1, I’ll be worrying about their goal; could I have done more to prevent it? Even if it wasn’t my fault, it will ruin my weekend, constantly thinking about it.”
Contrary to popular belief, he was both a worrier and a bad loser. “I’m the biggest moaner in the world if we get beat,” he said. “I’m even worse than Gary Neville. My missus will tell you she knows not to talk to me when we’ve lost. I’m monosyllabic. She stays out of my way and lets me sit in a room on my own. I sit there trying to watch telly, but the game keeps running through my head.
“After we lost to Brazil in 2002 it took me the whole summer to get over it. Everybody kept saying, ‘Unlucky’, but that’s the last thing you want to hear. That just reminds you that you could have done something about it. I don’t look back on it any more. It’s in the past, and I’m looking forward to a prosperous future with England.”
He was keen to make up for lost time, having been banned from football for eight months when he absented himself from a routine drugs test at United in September 2003. “I missed Euro 2004 because of that, and I can’t put into words how much it hurt,” he said. “It was a big chunk out of my career, not just with England but the Premiership as well. That could have been another title won.
“Missing the European Championship was massive. When I’m with the squad now I hear other players talking about what happened in Portugal two years ago and I can’t get involved because I don’t know what they’re on about. That comes as a reminder of the mistake I made, and a hard one.”
Wayne Rooney’s broken metatarsal had put a damper on morale at first, but the players had dealt with the shock, and were resolutely optimistic that their talismanic striker would recover in time to play a significant part in the tournament.
“Wayne is going to be one of the best players in the world at some stage, maybe by the end of this World Cup,” Ferdinand said. “I’ve spoken to him a couple of times in the past few days, and it’s an injury where it’s difficult to gauge the recovery time. It’s a day-by-day thing. That’s how he’s treating it and that’s the mature way to do it. He’s in really good spirits because that’s the sort of lad he is. What’s happened to him is disappointing, but as a squad you can’t afford to dwell on individual injuries, no matter how good the player is.”
The intention was always to accentuate the positive, and things came no more positive than Steven Gerrard. “He stood out like a shining beacon in the FA Cup final,” Ferdinand said. “It was marvellously uplifting for us all to see him perform the way he did. It wasn’t just a one-off either, he’s done it on a few occasions now. It was inspiring and I am just happy he is English, that somebody in our squad could have that sort of effect on the big stage.”
As a former West Ham player, whose brother Anton plays for the club, Ferdinand admitted to witnessing Gerrard’s heroics with mixed feelings.
“I was pulled in different directions emotionally,” he said. “As a football match it was a terrific spectacle, but for my brother, for me and for West Ham it was so disappointing. I said to Anton after the game, ‘You can walk away with your head held high because you’ve been part of an unbelievable match’. He missed with his penalty, but the best players in the world can do that — I remember Socrates for Brazil in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final. I told him, ‘It doesn’t make you a bad player, just unfortunate’.”
Ferdinand Sr would be one of those practising penalties with England — just in case.
“The other thing that gets said is that it all comes too easily to me, but that’s not the case either. Inside, I have to work as hard as anybody else. I’ll tell you how I’ve had to change. When I was young at West Ham, I’d come off after losing 3-2 and one of the goals we’d conceded might have been my fault, but I’d be talking about how I’d taken on the centre-forward. Now my first thought is, ‘Great, we’ve kept a clean sheet’, or if we’ve won 3-1, I’ll be worrying about their goal; could I have done more to prevent it? Even if it wasn’t my fault, it will ruin my weekend, constantly thinking about it.”
Contrary to popular belief, he was both a worrier and a bad loser. “I’m the biggest moaner in the world if we get beat,” he said. “I’m even worse than Gary Neville. My missus will tell you she knows not to talk to me when we’ve lost. I’m monosyllabic. She stays out of my way and lets me sit in a room on my own. I sit there trying to watch telly, but the game keeps running through my head.
“After we lost to Brazil in 2002 it took me the whole summer to get over it. Everybody kept saying, ‘Unlucky’, but that’s the last thing you want to hear. That just reminds you that you could have done something about it. I don’t look back on it any more. It’s in the past, and I’m looking forward to a prosperous future with England.”
He was keen to make up for lost time, having been banned from football for eight months when he absented himself from a routine drugs test at United in September 2003. “I missed Euro 2004 because of that, and I can’t put into words how much it hurt,” he said. “It was a big chunk out of my career, not just with England but the Premiership as well. That could have been another title won.
“Missing the European Championship was massive. When I’m with the squad now I hear other players talking about what happened in Portugal two years ago and I can’t get involved because I don’t know what they’re on about. That comes as a reminder of the mistake I made, and a hard one.”
Wayne Rooney’s broken metatarsal had put a damper on morale at first, but the players had dealt with the shock, and were resolutely optimistic that their talismanic striker would recover in time to play a significant part in the tournament.
“Wayne is going to be one of the best players in the world at some stage, maybe by the end of this World Cup,” Ferdinand said. “I’ve spoken to him a couple of times in the past few days, and it’s an injury where it’s difficult to gauge the recovery time. It’s a day-by-day thing. That’s how he’s treating it and that’s the mature way to do it. He’s in really good spirits because that’s the sort of lad he is. What’s happened to him is disappointing, but as a squad you can’t afford to dwell on individual injuries, no matter how good the player is.”
The intention was always to accentuate the positive, and things came no more positive than Steven Gerrard. “He stood out like a shining beacon in the FA Cup final,” Ferdinand said. “It was marvellously uplifting for us all to see him perform the way he did. It wasn’t just a one-off either, he’s done it on a few occasions now. It was inspiring and I am just happy he is English, that somebody in our squad could have that sort of effect on the big stage.”
As a former West Ham player, whose brother Anton plays for the club, Ferdinand admitted to witnessing Gerrard’s heroics with mixed feelings.
“I was pulled in different directions emotionally,” he said. “As a football match it was a terrific spectacle, but for my brother, for me and for West Ham it was so disappointing. I said to Anton after the game, ‘You can walk away with your head held high because you’ve been part of an unbelievable match’. He missed with his penalty, but the best players in the world can do that — I remember Socrates for Brazil in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final. I told him, ‘It doesn’t make you a bad player, just unfortunate’.”
Ferdinand Sr would be one of those practising penalties with England — just in case.
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