John Terry still hot and bothered about the Jabulani ball

Eye on the ball: John Terry controls the controversial Jabulani during last night’s match but it has caused problems for teams
10 April 2012

England's players risked sounding like broken records today but there are growing concerns that the South African heat, high altitude and the state of the new adidas ball may ruin this World Cup as a spectacle.

Both John Terry and Jermain Defoe admitted that they found it hard to adapt to the conditions in last night's 3-0 friendly warm-up win against local side the Platinum Stars.

It was England's first 90-minute run-out since they arrived at their training base here in Rustenburg and the worry for coach Fabio Capello — with their opening Group C game against the USA now only four days away — is that his players struggled to cope against a Stars team who were asked to come off holiday to give England a game.

"The altitude has been more of a surprise to me than anything — your mouth is really dry," said Terry, who played 45 minutes in partnership with Ledley King in defence.

"We have been training at altitude anyway but we went up another 150 metres and we certainly felt it.

"I think for every team the ball is causing a little bit of a problem moving in the air and off the surface. It is something we are trying to work on each day, to try and improve before our first game.

"A couple of times it swerved at the last second but there is nothing we can do about that. On the positive side we need to get as many crosses in and cause problems at the other end."

Defoe, who scored the first goal in the victory agreed with Terry's assessment that the shortness of breath and the ball are going to be issues.

He said: "Maybe we could have pressed a little bit more but it was quite difficult because of the conditions — the altitude and the heat made it tough.

"Then there's the ball. It's a lot diffrent from any ball I've played with. It moves about a lot. It's weird."

Players from the 32 competing nations including England goalkeeper David James, have been warning about the effects of the adidas Jabulani ball for the past fortnight.

The concern must be that they do not seem to have adjusted despite the pre-tournament preparations that have been made by the teams in South Africa.

The only good news for England is that the Americans are also finding it hard to cope with and goalkeeper Tim Howard has branded it "terrible".

He added: "You are going to hear that next week and next month but it is what it is.

"We are trying to get used to it, trying to read an unreadable situation and hopefully it doesn't come back and bite us. But I think you are going to see some crazy things with it. It dips, dives, moves all over. If you hit five balls with the same striking motion, you wouldn't get the same result.

"It is hard, it is hard for defenders to read, for keepers it is not easy."

USA playmaker Landon Donovan echoed Howard's sentiments and said: "I think the majority of the problems were due to the flight of the ball. I think a lot of times the ball doesn't fly true and it puts your defenders under a lot of pressure.

"Even balls that are comfortable coming in to your defenders, heading it is challenging at times and with crosses it is very difficult.

"So we are going to have to do some work this week, just judging the ball better, so we are more comfortable against England."

James Milner was the most significant absentee as England returned to training today. The Aston Villa midfielder had a slight temperature and was confined to the team hotel.

Chelsea duo Ashley Cole and Joe Cole spent the morning in the gym, the former as a matter of course the day after a game, the latter as the only England player to complete the full 90 minutes yesterday.

They were joined by Ledley King, who does most of his training in the gym, while Shaun Wright-Phillips took it easy after picking up a knock to his knee.

The remainder completed a light session, including David James, who played no part yesterday and seems highly unlikely to figure against the United States.

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