The Capello Era begins
Friday, February 08, 2008
Posted by Balaji Sivaraman
Fabio Capello’s appointment as
The one thing that irked me about his appointment was that he never seemed like the kind of guy (he looked too soft spoken to me) who could manage a team full of big players. Juventus and Real Madrid had a few players like that and he seemed to manage them well but given the big heads in the English side, Mourinho seemed like the perfect choice and I thought it was a done deal when he left
Wednesday night was the big day as far as Capello was concerned with his first international match (albeit, a friendly against the Swiss). Given all the hype before the match it was only natural that he delayed announcing the first team till the last minute. If absolutely anything at all had gone wrong on that night, I am pretty sure the English press would have lapped it up and ripped him apart to pieces. Thankfully, the team on display did a fine job and dispatched the Swiss army 2 to 1.
Capello’s first team sheet had quite a few surprises in it. His master stroke was in giving the captain’s arm band to a natural leader like Steven Gerrard (who also wears the famed No. 10 jersey nowadays) which looks like it will stay in his arm for quite a while. The defense looked very solid and balanced with two left footers in Upson and Cole on the left and two players who know each other well in Ferdinand and Brown on the right. Jenas in the center of mid field was a surprise to me, though that was merited based on his Tottenham form. Rooney up front was a natural choice given that is the role he is deployed in for Manchester United and Cole playing off him was also a good decision. From the team sheet, at least Capello looked to have gotten his tactics right from the word go which is what Steve McLaren was poor at.
The game itself was more entertaining than the qualifier in which
Capello clearly has to move forward from here and he seems to have gotten a big green light from the English press based on early reactions. With a decent win under his belt, he has got 2 years before the next big tournament which will be the 2010 World Cup (now that England are not playing any part in Euro 2008 after the disaster in the qualifiers) and he clearly looks like he is capable of putting out a team which will have each player playing to their strengths and which will play with the sort of passion that is on display in the Premier League week in and week out. He also has a natural penchant for success which he again proved as recently as last year in taking a poor Real Madrid side and making them regain lost glory in the form the La Liga title. Whether he can bring this clearly demoralized English side together and lead them to lost glory in 2010 (there is still a long way to go) remains to be seen.