Cancer victim Metsu wants to win the ‘match of his life’
PARIS: England have been unable to challenge for major international trophies because the demands of the country’s gruelling domestic season leaves players fatigued, Fabio Capello said in an interview published on Tuesday.
The Italian, who managed England from 2008 to 2012, told fifa.com that the team had under-performed in competitions such as the European Championship and World Cup “because they’re tired”.
“They’re the least fresh of any sides because their league doesn’t have a break,” he was quoted as saying.
“It’s like when you’re driving a car: if you stop halfway to put fuel in then you’ll definitely get where you want to go but if you don’t then there’s always the chance you’ll be running on empty before you reach your goal.
“In my opinion the football played in the first half of the English season is much better than in the second half. And because of that, if you want to be a competitive team in the Premier League, you need a really big squad, which is a luxury you don’t get with the national team.”
Capello left the England job to take up a new role as national coach of Russia, which hosts the World Cup for the first time in 2018.
Russia are also on track to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and lie just two points behind Portugal in Group F but with two games in hand.
But he nevertheless said he thought his time in charge of the 1966 World Cup winners had been positive, with the introduction of young players such as Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere, Phil Jones, Ashley Young, James Milner and Joe Hart. “I felt I left a good legacy,” he added. Capello’s comments come amid renewed discussion of England’s performance at international level in recent decades, with criticism levelled at clubs and league for ignoring the national side.
Current boss Roy Hodgson was reportedly furious at the Premier League for scheduling big matches the weekend before England play key World Cup qualifying games against Moldova and Ukraine in September.
The Premier League rejected the criticisms. Chief executive Richard Scudamore pointed out that the league was not formed until 1992, suggesting that critics should instead look to the Football Association (FA) for the preceding 36-year barren spell. — AFP PARIS: Former Senegal coach Bruno Metsu once told his players they were playing the match of their lives as he sought to motivate them, but now the 59-year-old cancer sufferer knows exactly what that feels like.
When he led unfancied Senegal on their World Cup debut during the opening match against champions France in 2002, few could have predicted what would happen next.
Not only did Papa Bouba Diop’s goal defeat France in one of the tournament’s greatest upsets but their unmistakeable long-haired blonde coach guided the team to the quarterfinals where the fairytale finally came to a proud conclusion with a narrow defeat by Turkey.
Ten years later in October 2012, after feeling ill in Dubai and being rushed to hospital, Metsu was told he was in a terminal phase of cancer and suffering from the disease in his liver, lungs and colon.
“They gave me three months,” he told sports daily L’Equipe this week after recently returning to France with his wife and three young children.
“It was an enormous shock. I was with Viviane, my wife and we were crying as we left the hospital. You think about your kids and everyone around you.
“I started chemotherapy almost immediately and when I went to the hospital I was in a wheelchair, I was so weak but there was no question of giving up.
“Often as a coach, you tell your players ‘today is the match of your life’. But no, it isn’t! Today, yes, I am playing the match of my life.
“I wanted to tell my story or rather my testimony. When I saw a programme on Eric
No success:
You tell yourself, you’re not going in three months and if you beat me, it won’t be easy ... 90 per cent of people don’t survive this situation but I had an incredible desire to survive. — BRUNO METSU
Abidal, that gives strength and inspiration to others, that is a powerful thing,” he said about the French defender who has come back from a life threatening liver transplant.
Metsu enjoyed a modest playing career before an equally unspectacular start to life as a coach until his African adventure began in 2000 when he took over the Guinea helm for two years before moving to Senegal.
He led the country to their first and only African championship final, six months before the World Cup, where only a penalty shootout defeat in Mali against Cameroon denied them a historic triumph.
Now his own personal triumph is in defying modern science and battling to live as long as possible.
“When someone gives you three months, you fight to go further,” said Metsu who has gained 2kg in recent weeks after losing 17kg since his diagnosis.
“You tell yourself, you’re not going in three months and if you beat me, it won’t be easy.
“In February, we didn’t notice that I had pneumonia and I had chemo on top of it. I stayed 10 days between life and death. That was the most difficult fight that I have known.
“90 per cent of people don’t survive this situation but I had an incredible desire to survive. I have learned a lot about myself and family values. Today I can watch my children grow up and I have had nine months of happiness at their side and it’s so much better than football.
“These kind of challenges can also bring a lot too. You see things differently. You take on a completely new way of thinking and how to be strong, like Abidal.” — AFP