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Capello Dumped England
I love the arrogant English media attitude that Capello has been dumped.
Capello resigned.
He dumped England.
Don't let them re-write history and show that you wanted 'Arry and sacked Capello cos he was rubbish.
One of the best managers in the world couldn't deal with the FA, so much so that instead of leading a team to a major international tournament he decided he was better to quit...
That should be the whole story.
Embarrassing.
Barry, Wexford
A Straight Swap?
As a Spurs fan; if the FA want 'arry, I would gladly take Capello in return. It would be the best transfer Spurs ever did.
Duncan, Ottawa
Let's Go English
I didn't catch any SSN last night, so I can't really comment on whether Barry Fry actually was 'racist' or not, or even xenophobic, as suggested by various contributors to the mailbox. But I would like to just briefly defend my own position, because I fear I too am labelled with the xenophobic badge for preferring an English manager (or at least a manager who qualifies in the same way players have to).
A manager plays a key active role, particularly nowadays, when we are perhaps guilty of overrating their importance at the expense of the general background team of coaches and advisors (a little like the fetishisation of directors in cinema, when obviously these things are far more collaborative than we ever make out). But as it is, with managers viewed the way they are, I don't understand why they are treated differently to players when it comes to being eligible to represent a county in international competition - it's not like it's an administrative background position, a manager is part of the core squad pitting themselves against squads of other countries to see who is best.
I don't blame anyone for getting annoyed about Capello leaving in the manner he has - I don't really wish to wade into that debate - and I accept that England fans only want England to do well. I also accept that the best managers around, with the best CVs, aren't English. Would I rather have Capello or McClaren managing my club? Clearly I'd have Capello every day of the week. But should Capello be England manager? Not for me, it just feels a little too close to cheating, and makes a mockery of the competition.
Of course, it's not cheating though. It's within the rules. And that's why the debate continues. As it stands, the rules of the competition prevent Messi playing for England, along with all other Argentinian players without some claim to British citizenship. As a 'one world' society, with an increasingly internationally integrated community, the model is outdated. But it is what it is, and we already have the Champions League to see football without the imposed barriers. And if we accept that it's okay for players, why not managers?
Maybe the best I can hope for is for the rules to change, treating managers the same way as players, and until they do, I'll get labelled xenophobic for viewing international competition as competition between nations.
James T (not Kirk)
...All the talk of Clever Capello and tactic ineptitude in English managers blah blah blah? After rejoicing at the appointment of Sven and his tactical genius - then Capello the mastermind, I cant help but admitting I'm really really bored of tactics and intellegence. I just want a guy down there who wants it as much as me, and not because he's paid to want it.
We need a man to swap tactics and simply reignite a passion for the game, not just in our style of play, or our players, but in the whole country. I literally can't remember the last time I enjoyed an England game, the last time I felt proud, or even the last time I had a feeling that the players felt proud. You've only got to hear comments of the Neviller and Carragher etc (players who would HAPPILY have died for their teams) to know there has been something massively missing.
It's time to stop looking for a continental influence, or amending our strategy to try suit that of the world big dogs (who actually have the ability to match). Accept what we are. Our nation is not built on intellegence, style or sophistication. It's built on strength, a fighting attitude and a 'never known when we are beaten' spirit. We may have bad games, good games - lucky and unlucky. But its the neverending fight in the dog that counts above the result. It makes us proud of who we are, and what makes us the greatest nation in the world.
Let's get back to we do best as Englishmen - simply 'wanting it more' and throwing everything on the line to get it. Maybe then we'll get at least a bit closer to actually having it?
Troy 'The above more than makes up for my CV' Hodgson
...I don't like the way 365 are insuating that it is wrong for us England fans to want an English manager and that we are all naive and jingoistic to want it and think it. International football is supposed to be about nation against nation - that is the difference between it and club football. None of the other big sides in Europe would contemplate having a foreign manager, and I think we have comprehensively proved that it doesn't matter whether you are the best manager in the world on paper, it doesn't count in reality if you cant create the right environment for our players - so we may as well stick to English managers, especially when we have one of the best at our disposal. I personally would rather lose with an English manager than win with a foreign one. I can safely say that now after years of foreign managers proving that the winning isn't going to happen anyway.
Steven Hunt, Sheppey
Harry Is Best Man For Job
So the general consensus of the mailbox is that A) the FA are crap, B) we've made a massive mistake in effectively forcing Capello to quit (statistically best manager etc) and C) that Redknapp would definitely not do a better job in charge. I have to say that on all except point A, I completely disagree.
A) Yes, the FA are crap. There needs to be a significant overhaul of the whole organisation as currently they're a complete joke. No proper leadership, no proper decision -aking and no direction. I don't know enough about the senior members to propose a solution but it seems we don't have the right people doing the right jobs.
B) Now, here's where my first issue lies. Yes, Capello had statistically the best win % of any England manager. He instilled a sense of discipline and duty when representing England (although clearly JT doesn't get the memos) and led us to two near flawless qualifications. But, does no one remember the World Cup? Where Wayne Rooney, coming off the back of his best goal scoring season ever playing as an out-and-out number 9 in a 4-5-1/4-3-3, was played as a support striker in a 4-4-2. Capello was completely clueless in that tournament. Joe Hart, everyone except him could see, should have been our definite number 1. The team should have been set up in the same way that almost all of the playing staff were used to playing for their clubs (off the top of my head, only Spurs were playing 4-4-2 that season from the squad) which was a three-man midfield. The three group stage games were painful to watch, and Capello did nothing at all to change it whatsoever. I just can't see anyone being motivated by Capello and, like it or not, this is a big part of the English mentality. He may have had massive success in his club career but I don't see anything to suggest that Polkraine would have been any different from South Africa.
C) I'm a Spurs fan. When Redknapp first moved here I didn't like him, particularly his management style, and wasn't too happy about him being here. However, he has proven beyond doubt that he has massive ability as a football manager and has done a brilliant job for us. I am fully behind the argument that says Fabio didn't understand English football. You would think that being paid £100k/week would mean that you would do the same job to whoever is in charge, but this is wishful thinking.
Redknapp is someone the players would respect and look up to (can't see them caring about his lack of trophies given the widespread plaudits our Spurs team are getting from press and players alike) but also get on with and like. He has enough tactical nous (Milan away in CL was one of the best performances I've ever seen from us - tactics were 100% spot on) and knows football well enough to get us playing well. The press love him, so he wouldn't face the pathetic sniping of the tabloids that previous managers have faced which has put extra pressure on the players. We may not win, but he is someone who would unite the team and I think he would bring them confidence in themselves, which could make a massive difference. He would definitely not do worse than Fabio.
There seems to be a culture of anti-xenophobia whereby people seem to overrate Capello's performance and refuse to acknowledge Redknapp's ability, and this appears to have come out a lot in today's mailbox. People seem so quick to shoot him down just because he's old school, English and pally with the media. I know we seem to overvalue anything if it's English, but this doesn't mean that everything English is overrated.
With the players we have, and how well almost all of them perform at their clubs, we just need a galvanising force as a manager. A lot of people have made mention of the dressing room cliques and tensions in the squad, and people mainly playing for themselves instead of the country, Harry would be the one to sort this out which would go a long way towards us being an actual team. He's good enough to set a team up properly and get them playing nice football (not the best tactically, but good enough), so I literally cannot think of anyone more suitable.
Alex G, THFC (utterly despise the tabloid press so not just mindlessly regurgitating their jingoistic b*llocks)
P.S. Of course, being a Spurs fan, I've grown to actually quite like having him in charge of our club. He's done a fantastic job for us (although I have taken a while to be persuaded of this), and is a very important part of the club. So, in other words, f*ck the Euros and f*ck England, he'd better not think about going anywhere. After the support we've given him (board, players and fans alike), I'd be pretty p***ed off if he did.
Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics
It's absolutely fine if people want to criticise the FA and the media for their treatment of Capello, but can F365 and mailbox contributors please stop repeating the meaningless defence that Capello is the 'statistically most successful England manager'? Given how variable the quality of international opposition is, and how few international matches are played, you don't judge an England manager on his win percentage. You judge him on whether or not he qualifies for major tournaments and on how well he does at those tournaments. By this measure Capello is pretty much average by recent historical standards.
He's succeeded in both his qualification campaigns (thereby putting him above Taylor and McClaren), but at the one tournament he participated in, he achieved dour draws against USA and Algeria and scraped past Slovenia. In one of the easiest groups England could have been given, we finished runner-up (which turned out to be a disaster, as it meant a potential path to the final of Germany-Argentina-Spain rather than Ghana-Uruguay-Holland). We were then spanked by Germany in the second round (admittedly with a large measure of bad luck). So by getting out of the group stage but being eliminated in the first knock-out round, this puts Capello marginally above Keegan, at the same level as Hoddle, and below Eriksson and Venables.
Enormously successful club manager? Absolutely. Good international manager? Jury's still very much out, and it's a shame we won't find out this summer.
John Daniels
Rafa Or Jose For England
Harry has his merits but tactically he is found wanting!
The only real candidates IMO for one-off games and knock-out competitions are Mourinho and Rafa.
As a Liverpool fan, Rafa was found wanting from a man-management perspective, but more often than not in cup competitions including Champions league he delivered high-profile results based mediocre players but excellent tactics and don't forget two finals in three years. You give him a performance-related deal. Would at least get us to the semis or further.
Mourinho - well his short-term outlook is ideal, great motivator and tactician and he'd definitely get to semis if not further. Plus he wouldn't stand for any WAGs being near the team the entire tournament.
Ash, LFC
Going For Youth
Lets get one thing straight, we will not win the Euros in the summer. If there ever was a chance of a very successful tournament before all this nonsense, when we had a manager familiar with the players and the England set-up, then it has gone now. There is no point rushing in to get a manager that will at best be struggling to paper over some pretty large cracks in the short time before the Euros. With this in mind, why don't the FA make the best of a bad situation and use the Euro tournament to blood a younger team, one which will grow over the two years til Brazil and give us a chance of winning the WC?
Put Stuart Pearce in beyond the Holland game, at least until after the Euros. He is ideally placed to start building a team that will be successful when it counts. He knows the England set-up, he knows all the significant younger players who will be making up a good part of the 2014 team. He can get all the oldies out that won't be relevant in two years' time and who never perform for England (Terry, Lampard, Gerrard, Bent) and the plain old dross (Walcott) and put in exciting young players and blend it with the experience of current world class players we do have.
In this vein our ideal team would be something like Hart, Cole, Cahill, Jones, Richards, Parker, Wilshere, Young, Sturridge/ Welbeck, Rooney. Although they would be inexperienced you would imagine they would enjoy playing for England and not seize up like we have seen England so many times in the last few years. They would not win the tournament granted but then neither would a team with Bent up front and Lampard in the middle which we are in danger of sending to Polkraine in the summer.
This 'team' could become more than a set of players put together, as most England teams of recent have been. They could actually become a team who understand each other and work instinctively together like we see for Spain and Germany. Finally a team like this, with Pearce at the helm, would be quintessentially British and something for the nation to be proud of: plucky underdogs taking on the world (or, more accurately, Europe) with an honest manager who has worked at grassroots level. I could not say the same thing about a team managed by that smug idiot Redknapp.
Fred Winter
Football Is A F***ing Soap Opera
Over the past couple of years television has been dumbed down, and now it has been confirmed that football is trying to keep up with the lack of intellect demonstrated in various shows.
Managers have often complained about the effect that rescheduling and tele-coverage has on matches and the sport in general, but not one person has made the link between reality TV (and its accompanied spin-off tripe) and how the sport is evolving.
Wenger was regal and professorial, foreign managers (that English teams had no hope of ever hiring) were revered and respected and even old Red-nose was given allowed a bit of lee-way with the crap that he regularly spouted...But in the past couple of years the draw of the PL franchise has turned these managers into childish, sniveling morons, portrayed as ignorant cartoon characters who are merely there for our entertainment. People like Holloway and Redknapp give the press what they want and conform to this pathetic reputation and are now given positive press and support, and those with actual intellect (insert joke about illiteracy here) and managerial talent (rather than 'hit-and-hope lads') have been hounded by the media until they snap...And look what happened; Capello snapped and we are going to end up at the Euros with either Redknapp or Warnock (you must be joking?).
We're going to have to put up with Friends instead of Brasseye, Big Brother instead of 1984 and The Only Way is Essex instead of Porridge. It's like swapping your brain for another genital; self-indulgent and fun for a few minutes but ultimately, without a brain your just going to end up trying to f**k a washing machine instead of giving anybody, anywhere any pleasure at all.
The press want Redknapp. Capello was better than any manager England could ever hope to have. But really, we are all going to end up bored and sick of this England team when they go out of the Euros in the group stages. The fans will lose out, the nation will end up with an average IQ of 41 from watching this rubbish, and our young footballers will turn to swimming instead. In 20 years time we all basically be Jellyfish, with two c**ks waiting for the next hilarious manager to lead us nowhere. Even Mike Bassett would be better than what we've got coming.
Oh and poor old Darren Bent, plays well for England, scores a few goals and the worse manager to have ever managed him will probably end up his boss, so just who is going to be England's centre forward...Welbeck? Hell no.. I'm just going to watch Mike Bassett, England manager on repeat in June instead, it wont be far off the truth.
Tim Hunson (Lurking for a long time, sick of this farce) Miserable football fan
Blaming Only The FA
When I opened your published mails this morning, I expected an ambush on Capello and how people were glad to see the back of him and how he's left us in the lurch!
Pleasantly surprised to see how everyone is blaming the FA and media but again really surprised to see then blame John Terry.
Personally I blame John Terry for the SA debacle - purely because he did everything in each game to lose us that tournament. Don't believe me? Watch the games again and the long ball over top by Germany - Terry continues to run one way! The guy is an ar$e and I'd rather see him left out (can I remind everyone of his mickey taking out of Americans after 9/11).
Anyway, I really do support Terry and Capello in this. Why should Terry step down? He's not been found guilty of anything. Capello should never have been undermined as the FA have done. Therefore, this sits squarely at the FA's door. Idiots. And anyone employing Pearce needs to be sacked themselves!
Adam (I've always said Harry could do a job ever since his West Ham days).
Still Turning On Terry
The captain, leader and legend that John Terry prides himself on being should appreciate that sometimes true leadership is sacrificing your own best interests for those of your country and your team.
Although everyone has the right to a fair trial, he should have understood that remaining as captain would have continued the intense scrutiny on him and his team mates. This would have been damaging to the nation's prospects in Euro 2012. Standing aside is not an admission of guilt but the true actions of a leader prepared to do the best thing for the country he professes to love. The consequences of his refusal to resign are now greater than he could have imagined.
Capello may argue that the FA may have not followed due process in consulting the football manager on a football decision. However he has misunderstood what was at issue. It was not a footballing decision, it was done to protect the reputation of the country and team. Some things are more important to England than football and the FA should be applauded for consistently taking such a stance. Terry wasn't banned from playing he was simply asked to stand aside as captain until after the trial. It was indulgent of Capello to resign. As a serial winner, he owed it to his employers who paid him handsomely, the team and probably most of all to himself to correct the debacle that was South Africa.
'Arry it is then, riding to the rescue on a part-time basis. He's in a no-ose situation. If he fails he can argue he was thrown in without proper preparation, if he wins, he' s a genius.
This country should be capable of better, this is just amateur.
Nik, London
...John Terry, Sir, is the very definition of a dishonourable man. I see that's another trophy on his wall, alongside the head of Jose Mourinho. I would rather England lost in the Final if it meant that he didn't lift the trophy as England captain. I would say 99% of the country agrees with me. To potentially have the name of Terry alongside Bobby Moore (and, incidentally other fantastic servants to the national game such as Sir Bobby Charlton, Sir Bobby Robson, Tony Adams, Alan Shearer and David Beckham) does not bear thinking about. I would even go so far as saying it looked like he deliberately threw the game against Germany at the last World Cup to get rid of Capello. Ironic and surprising how it's worked out. He must not be allowed to stand as captain or player, and so let's make his life hell from the terraces until he gets the message and retires from football.
Richard (and so say all of us), Cambridge
Very Surprised Indeed
Am I the only one surprised that none of the tabloid's headlines was 'Gotcha!' this morning...?
Jack, Shoreditch
