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• Rooney is one of the three best players in the world, Italian says
• I would not swap my job with Marcello Lippi, he adds

Fabio Capello has set the bold target of steering England to the semi-finals of the World Cup at the very least, thereby emulating the national team’s best performance at the tournament since the trophy was won in 1966.

The Italian has had to contend over the past month with injuries to key personnel and serious allegations over his players’ personal lives – one of them cost John Terry the captaincy – together with confirmation that the England team hotel had been bugged before last week’s friendly against Egypt. Yet those distractions have not doused his enthusiasm for a role he accepted a little over two years ago, with his basic target now to take the team beyond the quarter-finals, where Sven-Goran Eriksson twice came unstuck, in South Africa this summer.

“My job when I was manager of Milan, Juventus, Roma or Madrid was always to try and win and, for me, it’s the same now as England manager,” said Capello. “I am focused to find the best way and we are one of the best teams in the World Cup. We hope to arrive at the semi-finals, minimum, and then, after a lot of years, win the World Cup.

“We have a good team, good players and, at this moment, we think we can beat all of the teams because we can play at the same level of the best teams in the world. It is a surprise to see the attention on things off the pitch because, usually, my job has been to decide things on the pitch, so that is new. But being England manager is always a challenge. But the challenge for me is always important because, at my age, without a challenge, I’d just stay at home. I could go on holiday. I like the challenge. This will be one of the most important of my life.

“To manage England was one of my dreams and I’m really happy to have taken on the job. I would not swap my position with [the Italy coach] Marcello Lippi. I prefer to be England manager. I hope to play against Italy in the final but my shirt at that moment will be an England shirt.”

England have reached the semi-finals only once, in 1990, in the past 44 years, and Capello’s ambition is a concession that the Football Association and the supporters will be seeking evidence of real progress under a manager who signed a four-year contract worth around £26m.

A place in the last four at the summer’s finals would satisfy that with Capello admitting that Wayne Rooney – arguably the side’s one world-class player on present form – is key to achieving that much.

“Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Rooney are the three best players in the world at the moment,” said Capello, speaking at the Laureus Sports Awards in Abu Dhabi. “Their styles are completely different. One is fast, one has lots of imagination. Rooney is more strong. He runs a lot and helps everyone, and this year he has scored many goals. I think he is one of the best, but those three are really young and they are the best players for the future. I hope he will be in the same form during the World Cup and that he will be fit and not injured because he is one of the most important players.

“Of those who are injured at the moment, I am happy because they are injured now rather than when the World Cup starts. Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole are out but the players who played against Egypt played very well and we have no big problem with defenders.”

Ferdinand has returned to the Manchester United line-up since the win against Egypt, and Brown is expected to be absent for up to six weeks with a metatarsal injury. Cole continues to make good progress in rehabilitation in the south of France after breaking an ankle during Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat at Everton, with the club confident he will return to action before the end of the campaign.

That will grant the first-choice left-back time to prove his fitness ahead of the naming of Capello’s 30-man provisional squad for the finals, on 16 May.

England have two fixtures, against Mexico at Wembley and Japan in Graz, Austria, later that month before flying to South Africa on 2 June.

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Fitness permitting, 18 places in England’s squad for South Africa are already nailed down

Kevin McCarra

It is always hard to disagree with a man in the habit of being right and, in any case, Fabio Capello’s options are so limited that there cannot be many dilemmas. Some, such as Joe Cole, will have played themselves out of contention unless there is an eye-catching return to form shortly. The most famous candidate for exclusion should be David Beckham. He was exposed when he started for Milan against Manchester United and cameos as a substitute should not suffice. Beckham did not get off the bench on Wednesday and his status is diminishing. Capello values Theo Walcott’s pace, although the winger was poor against Egypt.

Robert Green, David James, Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Wes Brown, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Matthew Upson, Joleon Lescott, Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines; Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Theo Walcott; Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch.

Richard Williams

The biggest question mark sits against the name of Rio Ferdinand, whose absence would be sorely felt, with Phil Jagielka the most obvious replacement. The inclusion of Stephen Warnock and Stewart Downing depends on the success of Aston Villa’s league run-in; a series of good showings by Joe Cole would see the Chelsea man regaining his place at Downing’s expense. While Capello is not a man to be swayed by a single performance in a friendly match, the dynamism of Shaun Wright-Phillips against Egypt made a telling contrast with the naivety of the man he replaced, Theo Walcott. Aaron Lennon’s failure to recover from his groin problem would allow Walcott back in.

Robert Green, David James, Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Wes Brown, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Matthew Upson, Joleon Lescott, Ashley Cole, Stephen Warnock; Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Stewart Downing; Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch.

Dominic Fifield

Fabio Capello is utterly reliant upon the medical staff at a group of elite Premier League clubs to return the likes of Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson and Aaron Lennon from injury but, providing they have proved their fitness, this squad offers balance, solidity and bite. Phil Jagielka’s versatility may give him the nod over Joleon Lescott, while James Milner can also fill in at full-back if required. Theo Walcott is included on the proviso that he plays, and excels, regularly for Arsenal in the weeks ahead but, even if Shaun Wright-Phillips might deserve better, the role he played in qualifying should not be overlooked. Capello may be tempted to include a fifth striker, particularly if Walcott fades again, most likely at the expense of either Jagielka or Wes Brown in defence.

Robert Green, David James, Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Wes Brown, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Matthew Upson, Phil Jagielka, Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines; Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, David Beckham, Theo Walcott; Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch.

Players in bold included in all three squads

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Fitness permitting, 18 places are already nailed down, according to three Guardian writers

Who will Capello pick for England’s World Cup squad? Our writers try to predict who the England manager, Fabio Capello, will include in England’s 23 for South Africa this summer…

Kevin McCarra

It is always hard to disagree with a man in the habit of being right and, in any case, Fabio Capello’s options are so limited that there cannot be many dilemmas. Some, such as Joe Cole, will have played themselves out of contention unless there is an eye-catching return to form shortly. The most famous candidate for exclusion should be David Beckham. He was exposed when he started for Milan against Manchester United and cameos as a substitute should not suffice. Beckham did not get off the bench on Wednesday and his status is diminishing. Capello values Theo Walcott’s pace, although the winger was poor against Egypt.

Robert Green, David James, Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Wes Brown, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Matthew Upson, Joleon Lescott, Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines; Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Theo Walcott; Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch.

Richard Williams

The biggest question mark sits against the name of Rio Ferdinand, whose absence would be sorely felt, with Phil Jagielka the most obvious replacement. The inclusion of Stephen Warnock and Stewart Downing depends on the success of Aston Villa’s league run-in; a series of good showings by Joe Cole would see the Chelsea man regaining his place at Downing’s expense. While Capello is not a man to be swayed by a single performance in a friendly match, the dynamism of Shaun Wright-Phillips against Egypt made a telling contrast with the naivety of the man he replaced, Theo Walcott. Aaron Lennon’s failure to recover from his groin problem would allow Walcott back in.

Robert Green, David James, Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Wes Brown, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Matthew Upson, Joleon Lescott, Ashley Cole, Stephen Warnock; Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry, David Beckham, Steven Gerrard, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Stewart Downing; Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch.

Dominic Fifield

Fabio Capello is utterly reliant upon the medical staff at a group of elite Premier League clubs to return the likes of Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson and Aaron Lennon from injury but, providing they have proved their fitness, this squad offers balance, solidity and bite. Phil Jagielka’s versatility may give him the nod over Joleon Lescott, while James Milner can also fill in at full-back if required. Theo Walcott is included on the proviso that he plays, and excels, regularly for Arsenal in the weeks ahead but, even if Shaun Wright-Phillips might deserve better, the role he played in qualifying should not be overlooked. Capello may be tempted to include a fifth striker, particularly if Walcott fades again, most likely at the expense of either Jagielka or Wes Brown in defence.

Robert Green, David James, Joe Hart; Glen Johnson, Wes Brown, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Matthew Upson, Phil Jagielka, Ashley Cole, Leighton Baines; Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard, James Milner, Aaron Lennon, David Beckham, Theo Walcott; Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch.

Players in bold included in all three squads

For full story go to here

The booing of the former England captain has become the new Mexican wave

The demonisation of John Terry has reached the stage where people are heckling him without knowing quite why. Something to do with that woman and the reserve left-back. England’s sacked captain was being booed by Premier League crowds long before Wayne Bridge said not-on-your-nelly to the World Cup. What we have here is disapproval as a kind of new Mexican wave.

Captain Sensible is a role Fabio Capello identified this week as one he urgently wants to see filled by the injured Rio Ferdinand and the third man down the line of illusory power, Steven Gerrard, who must have been overjoyed to be given the chance to repeat stock phrases in press conferences about responsibilities and role models.

Gerrard will hand the armband back to Ferdinand with all the reluctance of a childminder hearing a parent’s ring on the bell when an upset toddler is screaming the walls down. For Terry, on the other hand, it is mortification in ribbon form, flashing around the pitch on another man’s biceps. Life would be much simpler if he could get it back and resume his East End guv’nor role.

After a consoling word from Sir Dave Richards, chairman of the Premier League, Terry lined up for the ceremonials four from the end rather than in the old meet-and-greet position. Lord Triesman, the Football Association chairman, moved to clasp his hand in upright, arm-wrestling mode, but then thought better of it, tapping Chelsea’s skipper on the arm, as if His Lordship felt His Pariah’s pain.

This solicitous gesture prompted the thought that Terry is close to entering the next phase of his trial by fire, when the mob stop taunting him and admire him for his resilience, his “quiet courage”, as they did, in another context, with David Beckham, many months after he had been hung in effigy outside a London pub. Beckham is easily the England centre-back’s best bet for advice on cultivating an appearance of dignity and making it work in one’s favour.

Terry needs it, too, because the booing of his name before the kick-off was followed by persistent jeering that was dark and disdainful and took 20 minutes to subside. A core of (Chelsea?) supporters tried to drown this hostility in cheers, which created the dissonant soundtrack of a previously admired bulldog leader being at once encouraged and condemned less than a hundred days before a World Cup.

The disconnect in Terry’s brain that allows him to treat emotional turmoil as nothing more serious than an annoying squeak under the bonnet of a Bentley conceals damage below the surface. Despite Capello’s insistence that his centre-half’s form is unaffected, Terry was bamboozled by Manchester City’s Carlos Tevez at Stamford Bridge on Saturday and passed straight into touch on his first contact with the ball in this 3-1 victory over Egypt.

It was wishful thinking on Capello’s part to believe that spending a week in Dubai with his deceived wife, having the England captaincy taken off him inside 12 minutes and then being held responsible for Bridge’s international retirement would not affect Terry’s equilibrium on some level. Not forgetting Bridge’s refusal to shake his hand at Chelsea and Capello’s subsequent declaration that Terry would not be captain again on his watch, which was accompanied by a sermon about kids and how England players need to show them a path through life.

On the evidence of this tussle with the best team in Africa, Terry retains his outcast status in the eyes of his manager and many England fans, who have developed a generalised antipathy to hedonistic and narcissistic conduct. Terry always exemplified the lionhearted geezer persona many England fans have always warmed to, so you would think it must have taken a lot for them to turn on him, when it really only took extra-marital slap and tickle, plus clear evidence of greed in the way he chased every buck that could be wrung from his position.

So the question for Capello, for England, is how long Terry will be locked out in the cold before being allowed back inside to his basket. Booing serves no purpose beyond allowing fans to feel righteous and they soon tired of it. For the England coach, meanwhile, there is the inescapable knowledge that successful teams are built around strong centre-back pairings. With Ledley King plagued by knee trouble, a Terry-Ferdinand partnership is England’s only fully credible combination for a World Cup quarter-final against a top-five nation.

Neither Matthew Upson nor Joleon Lescott consistently attains the standards needed to nullify the world’s best strikers. The slip by Upson that led to Mohamed Zidan’s first-half goal was attributable to the continuing farce of a £757m stadium being home to such a bad pitch, but the point remains: Terry is the best stopper in the English game.

After the interval the ex-captain was more vocal and demonstrative than the stand-in, but when Gerrard was withdrawn the armband passed under JT’s nose to Wayne Rooney, then Gareth Barry. Another few weeks of shame and then a weird kind of sympathy will kick in.

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The Manchester United star on life outside football, the World Cup Wags – and finding out he was England’s new captain from the TV news

I’ve only just arrived in Alderley Edge, the village in Cheshire where Premier League footballers live in pavilioned splendour, when some bloke in an Audi sports car charging out of the car park at 70mph almost mows me down. Welcome to Wag Central, where the Range Rovers all have tinted windows and only the toughest and brashest survive.

The Wags are out in force in the Village Café (next to a boutique called POSH): improbably thin, with luxuriant hair, cradling coffees and small children. I’m here to meet Rio Ferdinand, but the injury-plagued England captain has gone to see his osteopath and put our meeting back two hours, so I wait, drinking sauvignon in the Bubble Room bistro.

It’s a tense time to be doing this interview. The papers are full of worries that Ferdinand’s chronic back injury will mean he has to restrict his appearances for both Manchester United and England, prompting concerns about his involvement in the World Cup in South Africa in the summer. Even more pressingly, the England left-back Wayne Bridge has announced this morning that he no longer wishes to play for his country, because it would mean playing alongside John Terry, his former friend and team-mate who broke football’s code of honour by having an affair with Bridge’s former partner, Vanessa Perroncel. I wonder whether Ferdinand will show up.

The meeting has been brokered by the designer Ian O’Connor, who is launching a range of footwear and bags called Five by Rio Ferdinand: “A fashion/lifestyle brand for people that aspire to be like Rio.” As footballers go, Ferdinand is a Renaissance figure. He has his own digital magazine, also called Five (his shirt number at Manchester United); he owns a record company; last year he co-produced a film called Dead Man Running; and he will now have what O’Connor calls a “hands-on role” in developing the new brand. Move over David Beckham.

Ferdinand is a further hour or so late, but then there’s a blur of activity as he pulls up outside in a sleek Audi – happily, not the one that almost hit me earlier. Ferdinand has presence – I am struck by his bulging biceps – but he doesn’t swagger. He is wary, especially when he hears O’Connor has brought a camera crew along, but seems as grounded as those who know him claim. He plonks his orthopaedic cushion on the seat next to me and we can begin, the rules of the game dictating that I show a passionate interest in his new brand before raising thornier subjects.

I ask what it’s like to become a brand. “I’ll let you know in a couple of months when the sales come through,” he says. “It’s exciting to walk into a shop and see a shoe with your name and your stamp on it. My dad was a tailor; he used to have blazers that he’d made, and as a kid I’d be thinking to myself, ‘If only he’d had his name initialled on the inside.’”

‘Hello! doesn’t interest me’

Ferdinand is 31, an age when footballers start to have intimations of mortality, so getting involved in the fashion business may be a way of preparing for life after sport. “I’d love to be able to continue this if it goes well,” he says, “but I don’t sit there and think this is going to lead me into the next stage of my life. If it continues after my football, then great. If it doesn’t, then it’s an experience. But in terms of football, I’m not really thinking beyond the next two weeks.” He will not say whether fashion is likely to be the core of his life beyond the game. “I don’t know; I wouldn’t want to pigeonhole myself into just one box. I’m a person that is a free spirit, and I don’t like to be put into a box and kept to one thing.”

Ferdinand speaks quickly and fluently, with a soft south London accent – he was born and raised on a tough estate in Peckham – and seems genuinely engaged. “I could have done fashion years ago,” he says. “I’ve had lots of offers to do different things, but I never wanted to do it because I don’t think I really knew what I liked. Now I’ve got a better idea of what I like personally.” His deal with O’Connor gives him input into the design and an equity stake in the business; he isn’t just a frontman.

“I get offered a lot of things, often a lot more financially rewarding than this, but I don’t take up 90% of them. I only do things that interest me. Hello! and OK! magazine don’t interest me.” He made a point of not inviting either magazine to his glitzy, and hugely expensive, wedding in the British Virgin Islands last year, when he married the distinctly non-waggish Rebecca Ellison (she was an accountant when they met). “I don’t do stuff like that,” he says. “It’s not my game.”

Product placement negotiated, I ask about his bad back. “I’ve had a little setback this week, but it’s not too serious and fingers crossed I should be OK.” He insists the media obits of his career are premature, and that he’ll be fit for the whole World Cup. “With injuries, one day it feels bad; the next day the football’s great.” England fans will hope he’s right: the cultured centre-half is a key figure in manager Fabio Capello’s plans and, as the new captain in place of the tabloid- tormented Terry, his authority will be crucial. (Ferdinand knows what it’s like to be caught in a tabloid storm, after a missed drugs test in 2003 saw him banned from playing for club and country for eight months.)

He is curiously reluctant to talk about being England captain. “I haven’t spoken to the manager yet,” he says, matter-of-factly. “The team hasn’t been briefed on anything. We haven’t spoken to the manager; he hasn’t spoken to the players; he does it a certain way.” I express surprise: surely when Ferdinand was made captain in early February, Capello told him personally? “No, we have to wait until we go with the squad. I found out I was captain from the TV.” He has since had it confirmed by the FA, but not by Capello himself. He seems to want to hear it from the boss before it has any reality, and the situation is complicated by the fact that his injury means he won’t be playing in tonight’s friendly against Egypt. Steven Gerrard will captain the team in his place.

What’s the Italian like as a manager? “Brilliant,” says Ferdinand. “He’s similar to the gaffer we’ve got at United. The best thing about him is he’s black and white. You know exactly what he wants from you before you go out on the pitch, and that’s what we’ve lacked in the last few campaigns. He says, ‘This is what I want, this is what I expect, this is what I demand’ – and if you can’t do it, regardless of who you are, you won’t play.”

You’ve lost one of your key defenders today, I say, alluding to Bridge. “Have we?” says Ferdinand. “Yes, Wayne Bridge,” I say, “he’s not going to play in the World Cup.” “Why’s that?” “Because of the situation,” I say tactfully. The news broke six hours ago, and it seems scarcely credible that Ferdinand doesn’t know, but his look of surprise and the way he is blowing out his cheeks suggests that is, indeed, the case. Perhaps Alderley Edge is cut off from the outside world. If he does know and is putting on an act, he should be appearing in movies, not producing them. “I don’t want to comment on anything like that,” he says, when he has recovered his balance. “I want to speak to him myself before I’ll believe it. He hasn’t said anything to me.”

Ferdinand is no fan of the Wag scene – likened by Capello this week to a “virus” – and was critical of their omnipresence in Germany in 2006. “The whole circus that followed the England squad last time at the World Cup was a joke,” he tells me, “and I wouldn’t like to see that again. It’s a distraction and is detrimental to our chances. I’d rather go to the World Cup, say to yourself ‘Block off four weeks or whatever it is to win the World Cup’, and not see your family. I love my kids [he has two young sons] and my missus as much as anybody else, but if it meant me winning the World Cup and not seeing them for four weeks, I’d take that.” The Wags will be going to South Africa, but he reckons their profile will be lower – there will be less mass shopping, and Capello won’t let them near the players as much as in Germany.

‘Two different kinds of captain’

Can England win the World Cup, or will they buckle under the weight of expectation? “I don’t really like to talk up our chances – we’ve done it so many times over the last few tournaments,” says Ferdinand. “When Steve McClaren and Sven-Göran Eriksson came in, we said, ‘This is a new era, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that’ – and it does nothing. We get caught up in the hype and euphoria of England, the country expects and whatnot. We’re going [to South Africa] to perform, we did well in the qualifying campaign, and if we can take that form into the World Cup we’ve got a good chance. But to say that we’re going to do this or that is, one, disrespectful to our opponents and, two, puts pressure on ourselves.”

But how will the supposed “golden generation” – Beckham, Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Ferdinand himself, all now in the latter stages of their gilded careers – feel if they miss out again? “You don’t play just to get a cap or to be there. You play to win and to achieve something, and if I was to finish my career with England and not even to have got to a final, I’d be very disappointed.”

For Ferdinand there will be the added pressure of leading the team for the first time in a major championship. It seems that only British teams, with their innate faith in command figures, take the issue of captaincy so seriously. “There are different types of leaders,” he says. “There’s the guy that shouts and screams, and the guy that leads by example. Tony Adams was a shouter; Bobby Moore led by example. They were two different types of captain, but both were successful.”

So which will Ferdinand be? “I do a bit of both. I lead by example, but when somebody needs to be told I never shirk that responsibility. I’m normally one of the loudest in the changing room – not only talking about football but in general terms, and I won’t be changing. That’s the way I am; I’ve been like that since I was a kid.”

What about when Alex Ferguson is giving one of his famously direct team talks – does Ferdinand shut up then? “The manager’s the manager and his word is gospel, but over the years he respects anybody who questions what he does to a certain extent. A manager who doesn’t allow his players to have an opinion won’t be successful – you need strong characters in the dressing room and United have had that over the years, from Roy Keane to Giggsy [Ryan Giggs] and myself. It’s the quality of our manager that he allows you to have an opinion and a say in what happens – but he makes the final decision.”

In South Africa much will hinge on the form of another strident United character, Wayne Rooney. “On current form he’s the best player in the world; there’s no one as good as him at scoring goals.” Might he be crushed by the burden of being England’s talisman? “Wayne plays with that for Man United week in, week out,” says Ferdinand. “He’s been accustomed to that since he was 16 years old, so the expectation is not a problem.”

Ferdinand likes to stress how ordinary his life is – as ordinary, anyway, as it can be when you earn £125,000 a week and are feted wherever you go. “I think I’ve been on three red carpets in my whole life, contrary to what everybody believes.” He rubs shoulders with Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke and rapper 50 Cent, who appeared in Dead Man Running, but says they are associates rather than close friends. “I only really meet people like that through business. James Corden [star of Gavin & Stacey] is probably the only one I’d really socialise with. All the other guys I’ve met through doing interviews with my magazine or other business ventures.”

How do you stay grounded in this soap-opera world? “By staying close to your friends and having a good family around you,” he says. “If you surrender those relationships you grew up with and become cocooned in a world where you just go to football, come home, go shopping, go to restaurants, go to clubs, you can easily fall into that trap. But if you get the right people around you, they can shield you from that.” Anyway, he says, it’s the lesser players who spend all their time in nightclubs – most of the top ones are too knackered.

Ferdinand says he enjoys the adulation of fans – “if someone’s not asking me for an autograph then I’ve got to worry because I must be [playing] shit” – but recalls one unlikely-sounding holiday when it became too much. “We went to Prestatyn a little while ago [for a caravan holiday], but it wasn’t a good experience because there were too many people there. I look forward to doing things like that when I’ve finished football and there’s another centre-half playing for Man United, and he’s the person in the spotlight.”

Ferdinand attributes his level-headedness to his parents. His father, Julian, is from St Lucia; his mother, Janice, is Anglo-Irish. They separated when he was 14, but his father lived closed by and took him to football training. Ferdinand’s younger brother, Anton, is also a Premier League player (for Sunderland) and played for the England under-21 team. The estate on which they grew up had a tough reputation, but Ferdinand enjoyed living there. “I wouldn’t change it if I had to do it again; I wouldn’t change it at all,” he says, lamenting the fact that the old community spirit is dying. “The estates now are like ghost towns,” he says.

He attended the same school as Stephen Lawrence, the Blackheath Bluecoat school in Greenwich. “I was about four years younger than him, but I used to mess around with him and his mates, and I knew who he was when it all happened. I remember that day vividly – the headteacher calling school off and saying why. The first reaction from everyone was what was [Stephen] doing there at that time of night? It was renowned as a racist area. I wouldn’t have walked around there at that time.”

Did Ferdinand experience racism? “Yeah, but that’s part and parcel of growing up as a kid. Where we were it was a really mixed culture on the estate, but if you travelled to different areas of south London, there was racism. Certain areas of Bermondsey late at night you wouldn’t go, but as a kid I didn’t think anything of that. It just seemed normal.”

If he hadn’t been a footballer, Ferdinand thinks he would have been a youth worker, and he has channelled that interest into a foundation called Live the Dream, aimed at mentoring children in deprived areas. “That’s definitely something I’ll be involved in when I’ve finished playing football; I’m hoping to get Comic Relief and Sport Relief on board to help me run it and give it a more polished finish.” But he only wants to help those who’ll help themselves. “There are too many excuses nowadays. I know it’s hard to get work in the climate of today, and people say ‘It’s easy for you to say that’, but hard work is always the key to anything. No one gets anywhere without having to work hard and sacrifice something.”

That’s the lesson he draws from his own singlemindedness as an adolescent. “I always wanted to be a professional footballer, and there was nothing really going to get in my way. I used to leave my mates on the estate – they were messing around and stuff – and take trains and buses to get to West Ham [the club for which he signed at the age of 15]. That was my life when I was growing up.”

He had a wild period in his late teens, when he admits he was overfond of fast cars and hot nightclubs, but his parents warned him he would end up squandering his talents. “That’s why I left London to go to Leeds [in 2000],” he says. “That summer I didn’t get in the England side at the European Championships, and that hit home. I could have stayed in London – Chelsea had matched the bid from Leeds – but I wanted to leave for the benefit of my career.” Two years later he moved to Manchester United, the club with which he is indelibly associated and where, despite rumours linking him with Tottenham, he hopes to finish his career. “They’ll have to kick me out for me to leave,” he says.

And when his playing career finally does end, will he stay in football – or opt for film, fashion and the foundation? “I don’t know. Some days I wake up and think I want to be a manager; other days I think, do I really still want to be involved in the intensity of the game and the spotlight?” I remind him that great players rarely make great managers. “That’s been the case so far, but it’s all for change isn’t it?”

Ferdinand is getting restless, but is too polite to suggest we wind up, so the PR woman says it for him. He has been getting calls from his wife and doing some surreptitious texting, and I suggest that the three people he has to respond to are his missus, Sir Alex and Capello. “They ain’t got my number, the other two,” he says with his lop-sided grin.

• For the nearest stockist of Five by Rio Ferdinand call 0844 811 0535.

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England’s new captain reveals that three weeks after being appointed he still hasn’t spoken to manager Fabio Capello

Rio Ferdinand’s appointment to the England captaincy came amid one of the most high-profile footballing scandals of recent years, after revelations about the private life of his predecessor, John Terry, led to his sacking by England’s manager, Fabio Capello.

But Ferdinand has revealed that he learned he was to succeed Terry by watching TV news, and that three weeks after being appointed he has still not had a conversation with Capello.

“I haven’t spoken to the manager yet,” he told the Guardian on the eve of tomorrow’s friendly against Egypt, which the defender will miss because of a persistent back injury. “He does it a certain way.” In his absence, Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard will captain the squad at Wembley.

Perhaps surprisingly given the Italian’s hands-off style, Ferdinand praised the clarity Capello has brought to the role. “The best thing about him is he’s black and white. There are no grey areas. You know exactly what he wants from you before you go out on the pitch. ‘This is what I want and if you can’t do it, see you later, someone else will do it.’ That’s what we’ve lacked in the last few campaigns.”

Ferdinand’s injury has led many commentators to conclude that the 31-year-old’s footballing future is now blighted, and doubts have been expressed about his ability to last out the month-long World Cup campaign in South Africa this summer. But Ferdinand insisted he will be fit. “I’ve had a little setback, but it’s not too serious and fingers crossed I should be OK. With injuries, one day it feels bad; the next day the football’s great.”

Two things, however, were not helpful in a World Cup campaign, said Ferdinand; the first was England’s traditional sky-high hopes at each tournament, so often dashed. “I don’t really like to talk up our chances. We’ve done it so many times over the last few tournaments. We get caught up in the hype and euphoria. When Steve McClaren and Sven-Göran Eriksson came in, we said, ‘This is a new era, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that’, and it does nothing.”

The second, he said, agreeing with his manager who this week called their phenomenon “a virus”, were the players’ wives and girlfriends, or Wags. “The whole circus that followed the England squad last time at the World Cup was a joke, and I wouldn’t like to see that again. It’s a distraction and is detrimental to our chances.

“I’d rather go to the World Cup, say to yourself ‘Block off four weeks or whatever it is to win the World Cup’, and not see your family.”

• Read the full interview from 8am

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• My wife’s staying at home with the baby, says Wayne Rooney
• ‘Wags staying in team hotel was a problem in the past’

Wayne Rooney has revealed that his wife, Coleen, will not be accompanying him to the World Cup in South Africa after partially endorsing the view of the England manager, Fabio Capello, and the captain, Rio Ferdinand, that wives and girlfriends have been a distraction in the past.

“If they want to come and support us there’s nothing stopping them,” he said. “Last time we were all together in the hotel and that was a bit of a problem. My wife’s just had a baby so she’s not going anyway.”

Last week Capello bristled when asked about the details of the Wags’ accommodation in South Africa. “It is far enough when they stay out of the training ground, you understand?” he said. He had earlier announced that those wishing to travel would have to settle for weekly visits with the squad. “We’re going to South Africa to play, not for a holiday,” he added. “If they don’t want to come for the day only, they should stay home.”

Asked if he thought the Wags had disrupted England’s preparations at the World Cup in Germany, the England manager was scathing about their presence in the team hotel. “I think it will be [like a] virus, no?” he said. “I think so. I hope so. The same virus of the last World Cup.”

Capello, of course, was only an interested spectator of the antics in Baden-Baden, but Ferdinand has bitter memories of the episode. In 2008 he said Sven-Goran Eriksson’s invitation for Wags and families turned the World Cup campaign into “a circus”.

“If I’m honest, we became a bit of a circus in terms of the whole Wag situation,” said the defender. “It seemed like there was a big show around the whole England squad. It was like watching a theatre unfolding and football almost became a secondary element to the main event.

“People were worrying more about what people were wearing and where they were going out, rather than the England football team. That then transposed itself into the team. That’s said in hindsight. At the time we were caught up in the bubble ourselves. Being somewhere like Baden-Baden, walking around the town, there were paparazzi everywhere, our families were there. When you step back and look back at that, it was like a circus.

“I’m not going to tell the other players what you should or should not do. But I just think that, as a squad, we were a bit too open, going out in and around Baden-Baden, and probably had too much contact with families. That’s just my opinion. Some players may think they’d rather have that contact with their families.

“But you’re in a tournament and you don’t get to play in many tournaments in your career. To give yourself the best chance, you have to be focused. Having the families around and the paparazzi that were following us, it was all a bit too close and the football wasn’t really separated from it all.”

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• My wife’s staying at home with the baby, says Wayne Rooney
• ‘Wags staying in team hotel was a problem in the past’

Wayne Rooney has revealed that his wife, Coleen, will not be accompanying him to the World Cup in South Africa after partially endorsing the view of the England manager, Fabio Capello, and the captain, Rio Ferdinand, that wives and girlfriends have been a distraction in the past.

“If they want to come and support us there’s nothing stopping them,” he said. “Last time we were all together in the hotel and that was a bit of a problem. My wife’s just had a baby so she’s not going anyway.”

Last week Capello bristled when asked about the details of the Wags’ accommodation in South Africa. “It is far enough when they stay out of the training ground, you understand?” he said. He had earlier announced that those wishing to travel would have to settle for weekly visits with the squad. “We’re going to South Africa to play, not for a holiday,” he added. “If they don’t want to come for the day only, they should stay home.”

Asked if he thought the Wags had disrupted England’s preparations at the World Cup in Germany, the England manager was scathing about their presence in the team hotel. “I think it will be [like a] virus, no?” he said. “I think so. I hope so. The same virus of the last World Cup.”

Capello, of course, was only an interested spectator of the antics in Baden-Baden, but Ferdinand has bitter memories of the episode. In 2008 he said Sven-Goran Eriksson’s invitation for Wags and families turned the World Cup campaign into “a circus”.

“If I’m honest, we became a bit of a circus in terms of the whole Wag situation,” said the defender. “It seemed like there was a big show around the whole England squad. It was like watching a theatre unfolding and football almost became a secondary element to the main event.

“People were worrying more about what people were wearing and where they were going out, rather than the England football team. That then transposed itself into the team. That’s said in hindsight. At the time we were caught up in the bubble ourselves. Being somewhere like Baden-Baden, walking around the town, there were paparazzi everywhere, our families were there. When you step back and look back at that, it was like a circus.

“I’m not going to tell the other players what you should or should not do. But I just think that, as a squad, we were a bit too open, going out in and around Baden-Baden, and probably had too much contact with families. That’s just my opinion. Some players may think they’d rather have that contact with their families.

“But you’re in a tournament and you don’t get to play in many tournaments in your career. To give yourself the best chance, you have to be focused. Having the families around and the paparazzi that were following us, it was all a bit too close and the football wasn’t really separated from it all.”

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• Ferdinand comes bottom of magazine poll
• Gerrard, Rooney and Terry get more votes

Rio Ferdinand, the new England captain, has come bottom in a poll of Match of the Day magazine readers on who should lead the national side, with the Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard, the top choice.

Thirty-nine per cent of the 1,563 voters on the magazine’s website backed Gerrard to lead the team in the 2010 World Cup. Wayne Rooney came second with 29%, with only 15% choosing Ferdinand. Meanwhile, it seems John Terry’s sacking as England captain, and the fallout from recent negative headlines, may have affected his standing among young fans with only 17% voting for him.

According to the magazine’s editor, Ian Foster: “The poll shows our readers are unsure about having Ferdinand as captain. Rio has been suffering from injury this season and younger fans tend to look at current form.

“Our readers also prefer players who like to get forward, which explains the popularity of Gerrard and Rooney. They are also aware of the negative John Terry stories and it seems they agree with Capello’s decision on the captaincy.”

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The Carling Cup final teamsheets dispel the notion that England managers have a limited supply of quality players

Most people would agree this season’s Carling Cup has been an enjoyable, exciting and worthwhile event, much more so than the FA Cup is turning out to be, and when Fabio Capello takes his seat at Wembley for the final on Sunday the number of English players involved should be a welcome bonus.

In theory, at least, it ought to be possible to pick a fairly convincing England team from the international players on Aston Villa’s and Manchester United’s books. Something like this one: Foster; Neville, Brown, Ferdinand, Warnock; A Young, Milner, Carrick, Downing; Rooney, Agbonlahor. Subs: Amos, Davies, Sidwell, Delph, Reo-Coker, Heskey, Owen.

Before anyone objects, I am not suggesting all those players will be on show on Sunday. Ben Foster had not been seen this year until he played against West Ham on Tuesday night and Sir Alex Ferguson used Edwin van der Sar for the two semi-final games against Manchester City, ahead of his nominal Carling Cup keeper, Tomasz Kuszczak. Gary Neville may play at Wembley, but if he plays anything like he did at Goodison Park on Saturday he will not be forming part of Capello’s plans.

Rio Ferdinand is out after tweaking his back again, while among the reserves Curtis Davies and Michael Owen have gone backwards at club level, never mind international level, but nevertheless the overall picture is fairly impressive. Especially when you consider United have let Danny Welbeck go to Preston on loan, that Paul Scholes and Luke Young have made themselves unavailable for England selection and that in other circumstances, perhaps in a parallel universe, United might be able to call on Owen Hargreaves.

At a push Villa and United could both supply 11 credible English players each if they had to. That’s credible in terms of the Carling Cup final, not the World Cup finals, and I am aware that while both goalkeepers in the above squad are from United, one could easily substitute Elliott Parish for Ben Amos. The point is, and thank goodness it is not a Liverpool-Arsenal final we are talking about, that the scarcity of English players performing at the top level has possibly been exaggerated.

It is certainly true that both Villa and United have made conscious decisions to nurture English talent whenever possible, and that not many other combinations of finalists would yield such a plentiful crop, though it seems to be true that whatever the numbers of foreigners in the Premier League, and however regrettable it may be that some teams take the field without a single English presence, quality exists in England and good players still have the opportunity to rise to prominence.

For proof of that look no further than James Milner, whose performances have been outstanding this season. Perhaps not as outstanding as those of Wayne Rooney, but the United striker was a known talent when Ferguson paid £25m for him as a teenager. Milner, like his team-mate Stephen Warnock, has been at a few clubs but is attracting attention at Villa on account of his consistency and Martin O’Neill’s shrewd team-building.

Elsewhere in the Premier League Englishness is not in short supply at Manchester City where, mainly as a result of their spending policy, two England full-backs and two wingers can now be found, in addition to Gareth Barry and Joleon Lescott.

Everton, by contrast, are famous for not having much money to spend, yet their notable victory over Manchester United at the weekend came courtesy of two late goals from young English substitutes – Dan Gosling and Jack Rodwell. The latter showed maturity beyond his 18 years in declining Sky’s champagne man of the match award, pointing out that the team deserved all the credit and he had only been on the pitch for five minutes.

Rodwell was quite right, Everton’s team spirit and collective commitment won them the game, though most neutrals reckoned the individual performance most worthy of note came from the eternally undervalued Leon Osman, born in Billinge, between Wigan and St Helens. Leighton Baines, born in Kirkby, and Phil Neville, of the Bury Nevilles, were also excellent, as they have been all season.

So it is important to remember, as Capello takes his last look at England in action against Egypt next week before turning his attention to finalising his squad, that his choices amount to more than just the usual suspects from Chelsea and Manchester United, plus Steven Gerrard and whoever Manchester City have just bought.

Not everyone has as many English first-team regulars as Villa, but most places you look in the Premier League there is someone making a case for himself. Joe Hart, Bobby Zamora, Jamie O’Hara, even David Bentley is taking advantage of Aaron Lennon’s absence to remind everyone that while he may lack pace, he can still play a bit and whack in a mean dead ball. If that is all David Beckham is going to be required for in South Africa, Capello could usefully consider Bentley instead, as well as team-mates such as Lennon, Jermain Defoe, Tom Huddlestone, Michael Dawson and Peter Crouch.

The England manager cannot pick everybody, some good players will be disappointed and in that sense Capello’s job over the next few weeks is a difficult one. But that is exactly how it should be. When Capello came to England it was felt that England squads picked themselves, because Sven-Goran Eriksson and Steve McClaren had stuck to the same group of players and frequently bemoaned the limited choice. This summer, if some capable, talented players are left behind, it can only improve England’s tournament chances. It might even be progress.

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