Gary Cahill Must Be A Leader For England
After the debacle that was England’s 2014 World Cup campaign, the pressure is on Gary Cahill and the new look squad to impress at Euro 2016. The centerback said precisely that when he spoke to the media before the friendly today against Norway. Cahill said: “I think there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the squad because of the disappointment in the summer, there’s no shying away from that.”
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He went on to say: “People are going to be looking to us for a reaction. In that sense, it’s no different to club level after a defeat, especially one you feel you shouldn’t have lost – you look to respond in the next game. But at international level they take that much longer to come around. When we went out of the tournament I just wanted to go straight into another one. So, this is the next game – it might be a friendly, but we want a response and a victory. We want to get that feel-good factor back again, for both the players and the fans.”
A victory is precisely what the fans want and not only a win but a decisive one. This young and dynamic England squad was supposed to delight the world in Brazil with attacking football but perhaps it needed more of the old school English pragmatism. Gary Cahill sits somewhere in the middle of that spectrum as he has learned under the old guard of John Terry but is still a relative fresh face with only 27 England caps.
Those 27 caps actually make Gary Cahill one of the more senior players in the squad and he knows that he must use his experience to lead the next generation. Cahill said of his position: “For this next qualifying campaign there’s going to be more of an onus on me to be more of a leader, to try and show my experience. Even though I’m only in the middle of my career, I feel quite old in the squad!”
He continues: “I’ve taken on a lot from those experienced players who have stepped away from the set-up, but I haven’t necessarily had to step forward much in the past because they were always there. So there’s added pressure on me and the other senior players to step up. We need to start building again. We’re only human – it was a big knock not to qualify at the World Cup and we have to regroup, rebuild and go again.”
Even though Wayne Rooney was declared the captain of England, many believed that Gary Cahill should have been given the armband. Rooney is a volatile player who is prone to sulking if he is not having a good game. Cahill is the type of calm and steady influence that England need when things are going wrong. The good thing about leadership however is that you do not need an armband to be a leader and Cahill certainly does not.
Source: TheFA.com
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