Monday 17 December 2007

Capello it is then.

And the BBC are already leading pieces about him to the music from The Godfather. How long till we have Sopranos Style Special on Football Focus then? With him and his exclusively Italian backroom team, as it is referred to, all sitting round the table eating pasta, fucking off, forgetabouting it.

Silliness aside I do have one reason to harp on about the lack of an englishman in the coaching set up. This is that Capello, as great a coach as he is, and may be, will only ever have an eye on short term objectives as this is how he will be judged (and ultimately determine how much he is payed). So his interests in producing national youth coaching programmes, or a footballers finishing schools, of the sort that any "root and branch" examination would produce, would seem fairly limited. Why should he care about the national game in ten years time? Chances are he will be long gone by then, having spectacularly failed or delivered. Unless the implementation of any long term schemes is demonstrably in the short term interests the chances of any manager, judged on short term achievements, starting them are next to zero.

This is of course why Trevor Brooking has his job in the FA. To look after stuff like this. I imagine though, unless the national coach is behind you, using all the machinery of that office, starting long term schemes of the sort suggested is difficult. Not in the least because they tend to be pricey. And long term investments with little or no return are risky and traditionally avoided by money men. Better invest 6 million on someone that can be fired tomorrow, than 20 million on a project that will fester on even if it fails. And will cost you more even if it proves successful.

So, for now england have Capello, the 'authoritative godfather of Italian football', and his team of what the media will no doubt dub in time as back office 'hit men'. Long live the unstoppable cliche machine. Long may they prosper. Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Not so interesting fact: Capello in Italian means hat.

3 comments:

Jason said...

All these Italian cliches have turned my legs to spaghetti...

Anonymous said...

Capello is a great coach. There will be many barriers for him but hopefully, he can overcome them and bring England to glory.

John
SoccerNet Live

Chris Paul said...

I agree johnst, he will have many barriers, not in the least the english language one. but nevermind, i'm sure however that he will overcome that hurdle in in other day or two...

given a a bit of luck and a strong tailwind glory too. I mean, why not...

chris
footballisnotmygod.blogspot.com (what do you mean you're here already!)