England’s young goalkeeper was absolutely astounded by the referee’s decision to send off Wayne Rooney in England’s 2-2 draw versus Montenegro on Friday.
Hart said: “I saw it all. It was pretty pathetic. It was supposedly a kick but it was pathetic.
“It was the most pathetic sending-off I’ve seen in my life.
“I feel for Wayne, who is disappointed, because 10 minutes later I saw Danny Welbeck take it on the jaw and nearly have his head knocked off.
“I was thinking ‘what’s happened there?’ and ‘why is that not a red card?’
“That’s football and that’s what we have to deal with these days. There was nothing we could have done at the time.
“We moved on as a team, Welbeck did really well upfront after he came on and did a great job.”
England boss Fabio Capello took a different approach to addressing Rooney’s sending off.
“It will be a good lesson for him.
“We have to play three games at the start next year. I don’t know how many he will miss. One, maybe two but I hope not.
“Really, it is too early to speak about it.”
By the looks of it, Capello will be crossing his fingers that the Manchester United front-man will only miss one game. But perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. After all, Rooney most certainly wasn’t playing the ball.
Click here to watch John Terry and Theo Walcott’s view of Rooney’s sending off.
There is no doubt that Rooney’s red has taken some of the attention from England’s accomplishment of qualifying for the 2012 European Championships. Now then, it may seem that England would guaranteed qualification, but the Three Lions failed to qualify for Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland.
Goalkeeper Joe Hart said:
“We are over the moon. It was a case of ‘job done.’ We have got England as a nation to a major tournament next summer.
“We are a good bunch of players, a proud bunch of players. We played for our country, knowing we had to get to get to a tournament and we’ve done that.
“It was a difficult atmosphere and they are a good side but we are there although we wanted the win and the manager said we got sloppy in the last five minutes.
“We showed true grit and true determination and I am so proud to be part of this England team.”
Nonetheless, if England do not improve considerably in all phases of the game, they will go home early in the summer of 2012…again.
So I ask, how far will England go in Euro 2012?
If you can’t get enough of Shawn, follow him on Twitter: @etemadis
