John Terry Scandal Triggers Bad Memories for Past US Stars

It is tempting, so tempting, to consider the dirty laundry aired on both sides of the Atlantic this week and imagine that the England team that takes the Royal Bafokeng Stadium field on June 12 will be a miserable, fractured shell of its former self.

The English press is in fits speculating about whether or not central defender/philanderer John Terry will keep his captaincy, whether he and left back/cuckold Wayne Bridge can coexist, whether the locker room will take sides and whether coach Fabio Capello can keep it all together. The answers to those questions are "doesn't matter", "doesn't matter", "no" and "most definitely", and it would be foolish to think that the comparisons now drawn between this year's England and the 1998 U.S. team we're now being led to believe imploded because of John Harkes' affair with Eric Wynalda's wife hold any water at all.

The Harkes/Wynalda affair has long been rumored and laughed about in U.S. soccer circles. It was just one of those things that had never been confirmed but that everybody sort of knew. On Monday, after being prompted by co-host Nick Webster during a conversation about Terry on Fox Soccer Channel's Fox Football Fone-in, Wynalda calmly spilled the beans.

"There's something you need to know," Wynalda said as the video showed Terry walking out of the players' tunnel wearing his No. 6 England jersey. "Obviously also wearing the No. 6, there was allegations that John Harkes had had an inappropriate relationship with my wife and was removed from the team for that reason. A lot of similarities with this situation right now."

Steve Sampson's dismissal of "captain for life" Harkes in the buildup to the 1998 World Cup remains just about the most controversial event in American soccer history. We all know what happened next--the hasty and bizarre 3-6-1, David Regis, Chad Deering and Brian Maisonneuve, three consecutive defeats in France and a whole lot of embarrassment. Coach Steve Sampson took most of the heat and was labeled an inexperienced narcissist who thought his random tinkering would be infallible at the World Cup level.

Little did we know that all of it came down to Harkes' libido. No wonder the English are so nervous. But it's far from that simple, and the words coming straight from Wynalda, Sampson and Harkes prove it.

Sampson, who hasn't held a high profile job since his 2006 firing from the Los Angeles Galaxy, told the Associated Press this week that the affair was the reason Harkes was cut from the national team. In his 1999 book, Harkes details a deteriorating relationship with Sampson that he believed resulted in the move. He described Sampson as a jealous and petty man who took offense to everything and rationalized the decision to leave Harkes behind with a series of contradictory excuses regarding Harkes' leadership style, or his reluctance to play in back, or Sampson's desire to build the team around Claudio Reyna, etc. None of it made much sense.

"Maybe people will have a little better of an understanding of what happened in the final months leading up to the World Cup," Sampson said. "The private issues for me were the most serious issues. I think I could have lived with everything else and kept John on the team if it had not been for the private issues. It's one thing to have an affair outside the team. It's another to have one inside....There are just certain lines that one cannot cross.

"The last thing I wanted to do was drop John Harkes from the team because I really did believe that he was an outstanding leader on the field," Sampson concluded.

The interesting thing is that Harkes offered pretty detailed accounts of conversations to the contrary in his book. Sampson accused him of setting a bad example for his teammates by missing a bus or by organizing a night out, of calling the coach a liar when discussing a possible transition to left back, of not supporting his appointment, of playing inconsistently, and more. It was a dysfunctional relationship. But was Harkes consciously leaving out the real reason he was cut from the World cup team in a 227-page book that was written largely because he was cut from the World Cup team?

Not exactly.

"Steve's vague 'leadership' references, combined with the fact that the announcement caught everyone so off guard, led people to believe that's something scandalous must have happened," Harkes wrote. "That caused rumors to fly. I heard everything: I had punched Steve in practice. I was having an affair with Steve's wife. I was having an affair with Eric's wife. I was on drugs. You name it. I looked Steve in the eye and told him that he knew the rumors were a lie. Steve said he was sorry that the rumors had started...."

And there's more.

When chronicling the difficult months just prior to the 1998 World Cup and after mentioning an article that questioned why the outspoken Harkes had been cut while the equally-as-outspoken Wynalda hadn't, Harkes wrote this:

"In that same article, Eric stuck his neck out for me again, and I was grateful. Eric's constant support helped me get through. He and his wife, Amy, would call every day just to see how we were doing. I wasn't surprised--Eric has always been a loyal friend. But for him to stand by me when most people were running for cover is something I will never forget. And his support of me didn't make his life any easier in the months to come."

Incredible, that a man would make that kind of effort to support a long-time teammate who slept with his wife. Is it true? Wynalda confirmed to the AP this week that the affair did occur. There's no reason to believe he'd say that if it hadn't happened. Harkes didn't want to comment. But his book calls several important issues into question: His real relationship with Wynalda, the timing of the affair, and whether or not Sampson could have handled things better.

On Monday, Wynalda said Terry should be stripped of his captaincy and remain on the England roster.

"I didn't say I wanted him on the team," he remembered saying regarding Harkes in the buildup to the '98 World Cup. "What I said was, 'Look, he's still one of the best guys we have in this country and for that reason, I want to win. I want to have the best team on the field. It doesn't mean I'm going to hug him if he scores.' But I'll tell you what, that was my feeling then and it still is."

So it was Sampson, not Wynalda, who couldn't live with whatever it was that was going on with Harkes. It was Sampson who made the decision and Sampson who went to the press 12 years later to point the finger at Harkes for his own World Cup failure.

Which brings us to England and June 12. Fabio Capello is no Steve Sampson. When Sampson took over the U.S. national team in 1995, his experience as a head coach comprised eight years at Santa Clara University. Capello has coached AC Milan, Juventus and Real Madrid. He's won seven league titles and the Champions League. He has total command in the English locker room, having proven his worth in Europe and having guided the same team that missed out on Euro 2008 to a 9-1-0 record in World Cup qualifying.

In short, he will handle the situation. He will appeal to the professionalism of Terry and Bridge and keep the team's collective eye on the prize. If Wynalda was willing to support and play with Harkes, then Capello should manage to soothe the England locker room by June. After all, he's no Steve Sampson.