England's Heroes

As a counter point to JJ's post yesterday, I'm gonna have a crack at the England national team.

Reports have emerged that - shock! - that Capello fella is a bit of a disciplinarian. Never would have guessed that from his high profile fallouts with Cassano, Beckham, Baggio, et al.

The days of Wazza, JT and Stevie G are over, Stevie Macker's (that's McClaren to you and me) laughable attempts at being one of the lads was consigned to the dustbin upon his sacking. Capello insists on calling all his charges by surname only, and too right it is. While we're at it, how about some more public school behaviour - heads down toilets, public thrashings and humiliations all with an undercurrent of latent homosexuality.

Despite all the arse-licking over the past few months by the likes of Ferdinand, Gerrard and Rooney, Capello has refused to name a permanent captain until the autumn qualifiers, which I hope is in the belief that the gigantic egos will somehow find themselves out of the squad later this year. Certainly teh candidates mentioned are hardly the ideal choice but it also doesn't say much about the rest of the squad. Would you have Joe Cole, Ashley Cole, or Wright Philips as captain? How about A.N. Other in goal? Or the permanently crocked duo Owen and Terry?

The millionaire footballers also managed to turn up on time for this morning's breakfast, a notable achievement for some members of the squad. Not only did Rio Ferdinand remember it was on, he turned up too and had this to say of training - "We went out there and worked hard." Well, I don't know about you, but it is soundbites like this that confirm everything I've known about English football over the past 20-odd years - everything is newsworthy.

So, England host Switzerland tomorrow night in what should be a routine home win, despite England once again being hit by injuries, meaning we won't get a good indication of his future line-up.

So, we're in for an interesting few years with Capello at the helm,
the football won't entertaining but at least the fallout will.

Mark,
Okey Doke Football

Capello's Job

I haven't had a chance to write about Fabio Capello yet, so here's the perfect time.

I've been amazed to see articles in the English media that are a bit critical about Capello.
The points made were:

• He's being paid too much money - from an organisation that has loads of money, and who had previously made Eriksson the highest paid manager in football, why shouldn't they pay a better manager more money?
  
• What about the root and branch review - ah yes, the old bugbear, reviews are supposed to be the FA's (or at least independent consultants) job on a continual basis, regardless of the sacking. I'll even give a quick and free root and branch review - your players, managers & coaches aren't good enough, sort it out! It has nothing to do with Capello's job.
  
• But he's an Italian - yes, but no English manager is good enough.
  
• He should have an English coach as part of his team - why? to teach them how to miss penalties and choke at the highest level? To take them out on the piss?
  
• Why does he need a fitness coach? - you didn't have one and England have won nothing in 41 years. I think it's worth a try with one.
  
• He can't speak English - do you think he can't learn it with all his free time. How much effort does it take to learn 'Frank, you're dropped' and 'give it to Rooney'?
• He was hired too quickly, why didn't they wait a few months? - what is the point of hanging around while candidates rule themselves out or get different jobs?
  

So, it looks like it is impossible for England fans and media to like the manager, despite the fact that he has attained that mythical status of 'world class', has won everything there is to be won in the club game - they have got the best available candidate for the job, why are they giving out?

If only over in Ireland we had the option to slag off a manager of his genius (which we would) but we have the easy option of slagging off Howard Kendall, Liam Brady, Dave O'Leary, Ron Atkinson and Terry Venables. I mean, it's not even a challenge for Christ's sake.

So, I think a variation of Wife Swap is in order, we send Irish journos to England to try to give skillful back-handed compliments to Capello, all the while preparing for the article, for publication the morning after defeat, which slates him. And we get Harry Harris, Jeff Powell and the lads over here to extol the virtues of the prospective candidates, depending on who you're mates with (and what the betting is), while penning a 5000 word piece about the grassroots GAA in Mayo and appearing on every sports TV & radio show going. They won't last a week.

Mark,
Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball