Adios Fabio*
* I'm aware this is not Italian, but plenty of England fans won't know the difference anyway.
Managing England is the ultimate thankless task. Fabio Capello is a highly intelligent man and would have had a good idea of what he was letting himself in for when he accepted the role, but even then he must have been shocked by just how much poison has been overflowing from this particular chalice.
For certain sections of the press and a great many England fans, the very notion of a foreign type taking control of the national team induces frenzied mouth-frothing, so Capello was always onto a loser with them. Amongst the more intelligent England followers though, his reign quickly became very pleasing after a jittery start. The team qualified for the World Cup in dominant fashion and they were also making baby steps towards the sort of possession football which we'd been told time and time again was the key to doing well in tournament finals.
There are any number of reasons as to why the South African campaign turned out to be such a shambles. Some of them were under Fabio's control, others most certainly weren't. Either way, the subsequent outpouring of vitriol was so huge that part of me was surprised that he didn't walk away immediately. Instead he stayed on as a lame duck, and the national mood had decisively changed. At best a terrible apathy had set in, an incredible contrast to a few months before when I had never been as excited to be an England fan. At worst, well... the man had simply become despised. Not only was he FOREIGN (gasp!), he couldn't speak-a da lingo properly, he wasn't playing ball with the media and he wasn't showing any PASSION.
Well, on that last point at least they had a case. Not that Fabio was ever particuarly passionate in media appearances, but since the World Cup he resembled a man going through the motions. I'm emphatically not questioning his professionalism here - there's no suggestion of him tanking his performance or deliberately setting the team up to lose. But neither did he go out of his way to re-build his bridges with the supporters, the press or - crucially - his bosses.
And why the heck should he have? Even if he could have got the haterz back onside, those bridges had been so comprehensibly reduced to ashes that to restore them would have taken epic levels of PR spin, ass-kissing and most probably flat-out begging. Capello is far too proud a man subject himself to such a comprehensive humbling, and remained content to ride out the shitstorm whilst trying to keep as dry as possible.
Until this week, when events outside of his control conspired to throw up another captaincy crisis. Capello stood his ground as he was entitled to do, but the FA - aided and abetted by the media's wilful mistranslating of his words - didn't appreciate this and summoned him for a bollocking that crucially offered him a perfect way out.
It's probably for the best. This way he's been able to resign on a matter of principle rather than taking the coward's way out and won't have to suffer the 99%-inevitable humiliation when England fail to win Euro 2012 (and make no mistake, anything less than tournament victory would be painted as abject failure).
Plus, the media will now be able to get their favourite man into the job (who by astonishing coincidence was given a free run at it a few hours earlier). Harry Redknapp will keep the hacks sweet for a while by palling up to them and feeding them a steady stream of exclusives, but the odds are against their friendship surviving until the end of his expected tenure. Even if you're solidly anti-'Arry, you should really wish him well as he prepares to step into the breach. I wouldn't wish this job on my worst enemy.
Managing England is the ultimate thankless task. Fabio Capello is a highly intelligent man and would have had a good idea of what he was letting himself in for when he accepted the role, but even then he must have been shocked by just how much poison has been overflowing from this particular chalice.
For certain sections of the press and a great many England fans, the very notion of a foreign type taking control of the national team induces frenzied mouth-frothing, so Capello was always onto a loser with them. Amongst the more intelligent England followers though, his reign quickly became very pleasing after a jittery start. The team qualified for the World Cup in dominant fashion and they were also making baby steps towards the sort of possession football which we'd been told time and time again was the key to doing well in tournament finals.
There are any number of reasons as to why the South African campaign turned out to be such a shambles. Some of them were under Fabio's control, others most certainly weren't. Either way, the subsequent outpouring of vitriol was so huge that part of me was surprised that he didn't walk away immediately. Instead he stayed on as a lame duck, and the national mood had decisively changed. At best a terrible apathy had set in, an incredible contrast to a few months before when I had never been as excited to be an England fan. At worst, well... the man had simply become despised. Not only was he FOREIGN (gasp!), he couldn't speak-a da lingo properly, he wasn't playing ball with the media and he wasn't showing any PASSION.
Well, on that last point at least they had a case. Not that Fabio was ever particuarly passionate in media appearances, but since the World Cup he resembled a man going through the motions. I'm emphatically not questioning his professionalism here - there's no suggestion of him tanking his performance or deliberately setting the team up to lose. But neither did he go out of his way to re-build his bridges with the supporters, the press or - crucially - his bosses.
And why the heck should he have? Even if he could have got the haterz back onside, those bridges had been so comprehensibly reduced to ashes that to restore them would have taken epic levels of PR spin, ass-kissing and most probably flat-out begging. Capello is far too proud a man subject himself to such a comprehensive humbling, and remained content to ride out the shitstorm whilst trying to keep as dry as possible.
Until this week, when events outside of his control conspired to throw up another captaincy crisis. Capello stood his ground as he was entitled to do, but the FA - aided and abetted by the media's wilful mistranslating of his words - didn't appreciate this and summoned him for a bollocking that crucially offered him a perfect way out.
It's probably for the best. This way he's been able to resign on a matter of principle rather than taking the coward's way out and won't have to suffer the 99%-inevitable humiliation when England fail to win Euro 2012 (and make no mistake, anything less than tournament victory would be painted as abject failure).
Plus, the media will now be able to get their favourite man into the job (who by astonishing coincidence was given a free run at it a few hours earlier). Harry Redknapp will keep the hacks sweet for a while by palling up to them and feeding them a steady stream of exclusives, but the odds are against their friendship surviving until the end of his expected tenure. Even if you're solidly anti-'Arry, you should really wish him well as he prepares to step into the breach. I wouldn't wish this job on my worst enemy.
Comments
The rest is fair comment. Poisoned Chalice that job. Maybe Harry could get his cat to do the job from Monaco?