Wayne Bridge - Gent

The final nail in the Wayne Bridge / John Terry coffin has hopefully been hammered as Wayne Bridge announces his retirement from international duty today. He is stepping back from the England World Cup campaign this June, and that is that.

For those of you that have been living on the moon for the last 3 weeks, the situation is this - Wayne Bridge, former Chelsea & England left back, was sold to Man City from Chelsea last summer. In his short absence, John Terry indulges in an affair with Bridge's girlfriend and mother to his child.

Some how this news was made public, the girlfriend is, of course, taken under the wing of publicist and known degenerate, Max Clifford, I'm sure her biography will be out before the end of this summer. John Terry is stripped of the England captaincy by Fabio Cappelo and heads off with the wife to try and rebuild their relationship, whatever, we don't care.

Mean while Wayne Bridge is left at home in Manchester and what does he do, writes a brief press release, not a press conference, no photographers, no journalists, just a simple press release stating that he wants this to be left alone and private and that all he cares about is the welfare of his son.

Now, a week later, Ashley Cole goes down with an ankle injury. He is out for the next 4 months which means he will not have many games leading up to the World Cup, if he is even fit enough to play and guess who the second string left back is, that’s right - Wayne Bridge. He would have to stand beside John Terry again as a team mate, he would have to celebrate with him when ever they won, he would have to work extremely close with him if he wanted the England defence to stay organised, all while the only thing that is going through his head is 'This guy fucked my girlfriend.' . . . . I can tell you right now, if I was in the same room with the person that I openly knew, fucked my girlfriend, I'm sorry, it would not be pretty. Now times that by 70,000 people staring at your every move in a stadium, 1 Billion people watching world wide in their homes and the worlds press waiting for you or Terry to even look at one another.

Fuck that.

But not only that, as he said in his letter of retirement, he speaks with a tone of self sacrifice, he knows that his or John Terry's presence at the World Cup could divert attention from what is really important - winning the World Cup, he feels that it could create a rift within the team, distracting the players while they should focusing at the job at hand. and with that, he declines his position on the team. He knows how good a player John Terry is and how important he is to the England set up so he steps back. He wants England to have the best opportunity at winning this World Cup to a point that he is willing to sacrifice probably what he has been dreaming about his whole life.

Wayne Bridge - you have sacrificed so much to help England on their way to winning the World Cup, you did it with integrity, you did it without self gain and you did it with class. I applaud you and I think only good things can happen to people with that level of character.