John Terry is the Iron Man. That was his billing on Sky Sports for its big-match build-up. Never mind his recently dislocated elbow, the Chelsea captain would play with a collapsed lung if need be. But the Iron Man is now the Blubber Boy.

The morning after the night before, I sat around a table laden with home-made cakes in a sunny garden in the company of a dozen mothers of sons. “I’ll tell you what he is, John Terry is a prize tit,” said one. Heads nodded. How ironic. It was the tears of Italia 90 that opened up football to women such as these. Paul Gascoigne’s spluttering, it is widely believed, changed the face of football.

Women who had raised their eyes to the ceiling at the pointlessness of kicking a ball from one end of a field to another were suddenly enchanted by the man-child’s waterworks. There was an innocence about Gazza. He burst into tears as a small child would if you snatched away its teddy bear. The Spitting Image version of Gazza spouted waterfrom his toddler-like face. But still he was loved.

The reaction to Terry’s tears has been less indulgent. For a start Frank Lampard, his team-mate, had just been there and done that in a much more dignified manner. Lampard’s mother had died, he chose to play in the second leg of his club’s Champions League semi-final and he scored a crucial goal from the penalty spot. No wonder he became emotional. But he kept it brief. The sobs were short and everyone was moved and impressed. If a man has to break down in front of watching millions, that just about seemed to be the perfect reason for it.

Terry, however, cried the uncontrollable tears of sudden, public failure. He had presumably thought about the glory of taking that crunch spot-kick, but had he considered the pain?

I have two sons and by a quirk of fate both played in football tournaments on the same afternoon. Both reached their respective final and both games went to penalties. Remarkably, both my children engineered it so that they would take the decisive penalty and be the one who would be jumped on by his team-mates.

I call that amazing parenting, personally, especially because they both scored. Did Terry take a similar gamble? Was he one step ahead of himself, imagining the iconic moment? Were his tears for himself? Penalty shoot-outs are curious entities, not least because they transform a team game into an individual sport. For that moment the only Chelsea player who mattered was Terry. He was exposed, he failed and he cried.

Manchester United fans lack sympathy because an Iron Man’s tears make headlines and are a distraction from their joy. Do not look at him crying, look at us dancing. But I prefer Terry’s tears to those of Gazza and Lampard.

Lampard’s tears deserve not to be overanalysed and Gazza cried so obviously for himself that I remain staggered that anyone decided that his outburst was sweet and meaningful.

Even if Terry was on the hunt for glory, he was also taking, as ever, his role as captain seriously. By taking that penalty he was saving a team-mate from anguish and, had he not blubbered, all poison would be directed at Nicolas Anelka. Few will remember Anelka’s missed penalty as clearly as they recall Terry’s.

Perhaps most of us simply expect a man who, like Gazza, wore fake breasts, to sob, but when it comes to the Iron Man we do not want to be disappointed.