It was put to Frank Lampard in the press conference today that his young group might lack leaders and be intimidated by the size of the occasion in the Bernabeu tomorrow night, and he rather dodged the question by responding that leadership in the modern game is different to what it was 10 or 15 years ago when he was playing.
His point is more that the game has changed and you just don’t get that same type of leadership anymore, but wrapped up in that is the tacit admission that despite all the trophies and quality in the squad, there really aren’t any old school leaders to stand up and take control.
Yes there’s Thiago Silva and Cesar Azpilicueta, veterans who have won the lot and are exceptional professionals, but there certainly isn’t a spine like the Cech-Terry-Lampard-Drogba axis that you’d trust to go to any stadium in the world and dig out a result.
