Under the Influence

"Crazy" Rooney is the talk of the papers today. The thing none of the headlines make clear though is that it was all said light-heartedly, The Mirror saying, 'Capello's "crazy man" joke had the England players and Rooney falling about'. And from The Daily Star:

Capello cleverly picked out Rooney during England training on Tuesday, joked he was a ‘Crazy Man’ for his red card against Fulham and asked him why he punched the corner flag as he stormed down the Craven Cottage tunnel.

It was a reminder to the hot- headed Manchester United striker that he needs to watch his step.

Won't spend too much time on this, I'll just point out this from The Guardian, where 2 things don't really go together:

Yet it is Rooney's occasional flashpoints on the pitch that have truly occupied the Italian's mind. The forward is saddled with a poor disciplinary record since emerging on to the international arena with his temperament invariably reflective of his frustrations on the pitch.
...
his disciplinary record since Capello took up the reins has significantly improved. His only caution in eight games came in the friendly win against the United States last summer – there had been three yellows and a red in the previous eight

So his record has improved, and yet it still "truly" occupies Capello?
The other story from the England camp is some quotes from Ben Foster on his position at Man Utd, from The Guardian:

"It's a bit of a fine line for me," admitted the uncapped Foster. "I'm at Manchester United and I want to be there for as long as I can be but there comes a moment when I do want to be playing also. I've got no desire to move away but, on the other hand, I've got ambitions. I want to do things in my career. I'm not happy just to sit around and be the No2 goalkeeper, so I'll see what happens. It's a balancing act, really, but you have to be playing to go to a World Cup finals. You can't expect to go to the biggest competition in the world having not been playing regular football.

"It's frustrating not playing regularly but you probably get only one chance at being at United and you've got to give it your all. And it's a difficult one, too, when you've got Edwin in front of you doing so well. It's quite hard to knock on the manager's door and say: 'Give me a chance please, boss' when he's kept 14 consecutive clean sheets. I'm 25 and I've still got a long time to go in my career so, hopefully, it will just be a case of sitting tight and biding my time. I will start again next season and see what goes from there. But, with the World Cup coming up next year, there'll be a lot of English players who want to be picked in the squad and involved. We will just have to come to that when it's the case. I'm going to start next season, give it my all and see what happens."

I think the point that should be made is that he's only 25 and so the onus doesn't have to solely on the 2010 world cup.
Henrik Larsson calls Ronaldo a diver and blatantly admits he'll try and influence the referee at the start of the game. Is this really allowed? From The Mail:

'I intend speaking with the referee before the match to warn him about Ronaldo diving.

'We must be careful, as a team, not to get caught out by that, but so must the referee. I will be having a word with him and telling him to keep an eye out for it.'