Fabio Capello

The resignation of Fabio Capello this last week has marked the end of an experiment in discipline in the English camp which has fallen short of the original expectation of turning professional club players into professional international players. This is a problem which, at times, has plagued the teams of the British Isles. Roy Keane's episode in the Orient (which needs no further comment) is a decent example of a professional having expectations from his job as a professional football player at a professional club, arriving to an international set up which should have the same standards, but didn't. The attitude at that stage, from players and the FAI, was that “this should do”. But for a someone who was used to winning in a well organised and disciplined set up, it wouldn't. I should note at this juncture that I am not trying to justify Keane or McCarthy, I'm trying to make a point about attitude to international football. Keane, if we believe what he claims to have said, had the right attitude.

The English FA's appointment of Capello was a direct reaction to a series of managers who came through in the dressing room as “one of the lads”, or at least that was what the media portrayed it as. McClaren was portrayed as a clown with an umbrella, and later, as a clown with a funny fake accent. Something which I'm sure has irked him since, but the very fact that the umbrella was the focus of the media's attention, or that it warranted merit, points to the lack of will to criticise the players' attitude to the international situation. Capello came in on the back of a platform for discipline and tactical nous which it felt the national team lacked, and which had seen them fail to qualify for the European Championships. This shouldn't come as a surprise, as the European Championships are one of the most difficult tournaments in world football. The solution was to hire a coach from Italy, the world champions, surely nothing could go wrong there? Obviously something did. The culture clash of an Italian football perspective, which values hard work, organisation, and above all a highly professionalised attitude to the work at hand meant that the players who had previously gone to training for England humming the national anthem and looking forward to spending time with their mates were now expected to do a full shift of work and then to go to their rooms and wait to go to work for 90 minutes on the pitch. I'm not trying to say that the players hoped to skive off when they went away, but an obvious endemic problem was that when they had the idea that they were double jobbing, the day to day work of playing for their club was the subconscious priority for every player there. If you get a bunch of schoolboys together and send them away on a field trip, in particular if you sent them abroad, you can expect mischief and hijinks. If the schoolboys in question happen to be multimillionaires who are used to being pandered to, when someone tells them to act like a professional when they used to have fun with the boys, it's not always going to go to plan. Capello's position on drinking and alcohol is clear from the widely reported Andy Carroll comments of a few months ago, but more than that the increasing impression was of a manager who was disillusioned with a group of players who had constantly refused to act in the professional manner they had been expected to. The general feeling was one of being in a summer camp, rather than a job.

Add to this that players had an over-inflated sense of power. In very few of the successful teams do you see anything arrive on twitter but platitudes and general niceties about “a difficult game” against “a tough rival”, but we got the win etc. English players seem to have less of a sense of the importance of this media, and lack either the common sense or the training to properly use it rather than treat it as a text message service to say things they should keep to themselves or to their friends. Given the reaction to Capello's resignation from the top players within the squad and their immediate turn to twitter to express their opinion on needing an English manager, coach, kit man and tea lady, it seems pretty obvious that they've made their own beds. Rooney has already stated that it “has to be” Redknapp, so if it just so happens that the club where he currently works would prefer not to lose him or to completely unsettle him and his team before the end of the season and someone else comes in, they will be more than aware that they are not wanted. Of course, the general sense of power that these players seem to think they have also creates problems for managers coming in who would like to drop players or rotate or change things, but realise they can't drop someone as important as Rooney or Gerrard. One need only look at the lambasting which Villas Boas is receiving in the media in England for dropping Lampard in important games, with one particular pundit who happens to be his cousin claiming he's committing “managerial suicide”. It isn't then, very hard to imagine that there are a few of the “(self)important” players who have a line into the media, and would offer information to the journalists they like and/or are related to. This is another particularly unhealthy symptom of the English football team. A close relationship with the media also allows for the increased hype which tends to overpressure an under-performing team. Furthermore, it can't help that the recording which almost undid 'Arry himself was a jovial enough exchange between a journalist trying to hang him which started with “Well 'Arry, what's goin on mate?”. These journalists will hang him in six months time when the whole European Championship goes awry again, which it inevitably will if there aren't some serious changes.

However, Capello tried to initiate those changes, and neither the FA nor the players ended up very happy about what he was doing. There is an overall slight amateurish feel to the set up when players join the England team, and until the players realise that they have to respect their international manager and follow his instructions to the same level which they would that of their club manager, the problems which have recently become associated with the England team will continue. Firing Capello won't help, if anything, it will make things worse and increase the sense of player power.