THE PAOLO DI CANIO COLUMN

It was my personal problem that I do not want to tell the public.

But I decided to remain because without me I am sure this team was not capable of going up straight away.

Not because we do not have talented players, because we have much better players than the other teams for sure, but the dressing room needs to believe in the way I lead them.

In the way we train very hard physically and mentally every day and the attention is high. My demand is always high, even in the relaxing moments.

This is very different maybe to the other teams who are more relaxed.

The last two games prove I was right because since the moment we get close to promotion they have relaxed a little bit more and we saw the result.

If this team do not have the desire, not just in the two or three that have naturally got this inside, but in the 22, the quality of the training sessions become very low and the attention to detail is very low.

If this happens this team is an average team because it is not a team that plays together for three years, and they know what they want and what they need.

One of them said to my fitness coach two weeks ago that ‘If you tell us to train four hours per day we will do this, but if you were a different manager who tells us to train one minute a day then we do this too.’ So, after working very hard for seven months and reaching the top they weren’t capable to say to a different manager who said they could have three days off to say ‘no, we don’t want three days off because we worked hard to reach the top, and we need to continue working hard.’ This proved I was right, and if they did not train every day and focus their attention every day we could not have this result.

In two months you can lose 12 games in a row, and we proved in the last two games I am right.

Not because they are not great players or great professionals, but in the last maybe seven years they have the habit that they had because someone teach them to behave in this way and for them it is normal.

For me my standards are very high, so it is a bad habit.

But it was not my players’ fault, it was the environment where they grew up.

Even after seven months under me I think you can’t cancel seven years of bad habits, because it is not my players’ fault.

PAOLO ON: Playing in the charity match I like this because Swindon is involved in charity, and that is very important.

I will be playing but it is an occasion also for the people to come and see many ex footballers who played at Swindon for an important cause.

Already we have sold 600 tickets but we hope many will join us because it should be fun.

We could even have a laugh because there will be many average players playing too, and it is comic in some way.

I am trying to involve some very important names, but I can not say now.

Against my team will be a very top side, and I hope to bring some good players from Italy and England. Already one had denied to come, because John Moncur is injured.

I played a charity match at Wembley in 2008 for Soccer Aid. It was a very important cause and there were 45,000 people, and players like Romario and Shearer played.

I played 90 minutes, but I was younger obviously, and I don’t know how long I can manage.

I will try my best to play 90 minutes because there are 11 I have to manage but I have to stay on the field. There are others like Picaretta and Domenico who are rubbish so I must stay on the field.

There is an opportunity for my players if they want to blame me to come and say ‘come on, squeeze up, why don’t you move your body, why don’t you want the ball early.’ It is also a good opportunity for the fans to enjoy the moment, so please come in numbers because this is very important.

PAOLO ON: Chelsea beating Barcelona I think Chelsea did brilliantly to beat Barcelona, but they did need a bit of luck, especially in the Champions League.

Messi missed the penalty, and in the last two games against Chelsea he was a poor player.

But you have to have this luck if you are to beat a team like Barcelona.

Chelsea did a fantastic job, because after they went 2-0 down and down to 10 men for an hour, the commitment, especially from Drogba at left back was something special for the manager.

It was not the best performance in terms of passing the ball around, but you can’t always play like this, and not against Barcelona.

They worked hard and suffered together, and they deserve it when they killed the game with two minutes to go.

It looked like it was finished before then too, but two minutes in the Camp Nou against Barcelona is like two hours.

They did something special for Di Matteo because as a manager he did well at MK Dons and well at West Bromwich, and then he went to Chelsea as assistant to Villas Boas.

This is his chance and he has shown that at the top level he can restore the energy of the top players who were not happy.

He knows more than anybody about the Chelsea environment, and he could do something special.

I am not Abramovich, but what manager is he looking for?

With Villas Boas he spent big money, and he is a good manager who will do a good job in the future, but Di Matteo is a good manager, especially if he does not want to change a lot at Chelsea.

They have a very good manager, who with few changes can compete to win the title in England, and he is already in the final of the Champions League.

He is not a young manager working in a youth academy, he has knowledge and has proved at many levels he has ability. He has now shown that at Chelsea.

PAOLO ON: Pearce picking the Euro squad Mamma Mia! I can’t believe and I do not believe that Stuart is going to select the players for another manager.

In my opinion the people are working behind the scenes because I can not imagine the most important football association in the world behaving like a pub situation.

This is not true, there must already be a name, and they do not want to say this name at the moment.

This person will say to Stuart, select this, this, and this, because otherwise it will be mad. The FA have intelligent people.

I think it is easy to select the players for the national team, and if you pick it for another manager you can make one or two wrong decision, but not 20.

The goalkeeper, Rooney, Terry, Gerrard, these are not surprises and there are many others.

PAOLO ON: How he celebrated promotion I was not in the mood to celebrate because I was not happy about the performance, and for other reasons I obviously did not feel happy.

But we came back and went back home straight away, then we had one small glass of beer because I do not like too much because of my stomach.

Then I started thinking about the game and then Monday’s training session because I want to win every game.