Cole to captain the Friendlies between England and Republic of Ireland

With Steven Gerrard out on a leave of absence, the captaincy duties fell on the lap of Chelsea left-back Ashley Cole who is all set to lead the English squad for a friendly game with the Republic of Ireland. The game which is organized as a marker for the squad having touched the hundred caps milestone is set to take place at Wembley on Wednesday. Cole will be making his 102nd appearance for England, having become the seventh player to reach a century of caps.

The news of Cole’s new position was released just months after Cole’s twitter scandal where he used a derogatory expletive to describe the Football Association. Since the FA are not people to take the news sitting down, retaliation and retribution (in that order) was inevitable. The defender was slapped with a £90,000 fine in October 2012 for his unsavory statement and since and was forced to retract the same and apologize personally to FA chairman David Bernstein.

This was not his first brush with controversy. Prior to this, Cole had given evidence to a situation involving Anton Ferdinand who was racially abused by Terry during a match between Chelsea and QPR in October 2011.

Hodgson is currently in a dilemma as to who should wear the armband as he considers both Frank Lampard, the Vice Captain, and Cole to be eligible for the role.

“Frank and I are happy that [Cole] will lead the team out but Frank still remains the captain of the team,” said Hodgson.

This will be Cole’s 102nd cap for the Engalnd team. This will also be the first time that the Republic is visiting Wembley Stadium, as part of the FA’s 150th anniversary celebrations, since 1991.