England think the world of their Italian teacher as they aim to make history
Obviously England are now nailed-on certainties to win the World Cup, and if you wish to make an early investment at your bookmakers to fund a trip to South Africa then don’t let me stop you. The portents are good, the manner of qualification has been sensational, and for once the tournament will not be taking place in the sort of baking temperatures that have so often stymied the English high-tempo game.
So far so good. On the flip side, however, it is only fair to highlight a couple of facts to pierce premature rejoicing. The first is that no team coached by a foreigner have ever won a World Cup. The second, flagged up by Fabio Capello himself in an attempt to keep everyone’s feet on the ground, is that England tend not to turn up for summer tournaments with the sort of early-season spring in their step they demonstrated at Wembley on Wednesday. After a punishing Premier League campaign has taken its toll, Capello knows he will be lucky just to be able to call on the same players in June, and almost certain to find them in a less robust physical condition.
Foreign managers first. England will have to make history to win the next World Cup, though after 44 years of hurt and not so much as an appearance in the final away from these shores they would be doing that anyway. Foreign coaches are a relatively new phenomenon, at least among leading football nations, and it is possible that in another few decades the list of World Cup winners will be dotted with people employed outside their country of origin. And if you must have a foreign coach – not everyone is wholly in favour of the practice – then it probably pays to have an Italian.
Frank Lampard thinks so, at any rate, and he should know. Despite only ever playing for England and two London clubs he has worked for three Italian coaches, four if you count the influence of Gianfranco Zola (and Lampard does) in his first couple of seasons at Chelsea. “I love working under them,” he explains. “What they have in common is a very strong work ethic. Training is always well organised and you work very hard. It’s a serious business, they don’t allow you to let up. But with that comes the winning mentality. Carlo Ancelotti and Fabio Capello are both winners. Proven winners. They know what to do to win, and that rubs off can you wash a canada goose coat on you. It’s certainly rubbed off on England.”
While Capello the drill sergeant is doubtless a welcome change from Sven‑Goran Eriksson’s laissez‑faire regime and Steve McClaren’s unproductive complacency, it is naive to imagine the Italian has transformed England simply by barking at them on the training ground or putting the wives and girlfriends in their place. Look at the team on the pitch and you can see similarities to both Brazil and Sir Alf Ramsey’s 1966 side. Not a bad double for World Cup hopefuls.
Capello’s persistence with the effective but ungainly Emile Heskey, preferring to keep the shape of the side and balance of the team rather than bringing canada goose coat 1000 calorie in a more clinical finisher, has echoes of both Ramsey’s refusal to listen to the popular clamour for Jimmy Greaves and his insistence that Jack Charlton should play centre-half. Even Charlton doubted he was the best in the country in his position and told Ramsey so, only to be assured that it was not always necessary to have the best players, just the best team.
Getting England to play like Brazil might be beyond Capello – he is Italian, after all, and only human – though he has subtly adapted the amazon canada goose jacket traditional 4‑4‑2 so that his team can be almost as flexible. While England’s formation on Wednesday could be described as 4‑2‑3‑1, Heskey was not as alone up front as that notation implies and neither were there three midfielders in a straight line behind him.
For much of the game England actually managed something more akin to 4-2-2-2, with full-backs supplementing the width provided by Aaron Lennon on the right touchline and Steven Gerrard free to move best price for canada goose jacket in from the left. That’s quite canada goose coat 1000 bulbs promo a neat trick for a team often castigated for clinging to two rigid lines of four like a safety blanket, all the more so when one considers Capello came with a reputation for defensive dourness and lack of adventure. Results so far have proved otherwise, and so have a remarkable 31 goals in eight matches. Had Heskey converted just one of those first-half chances England would now be averaging four goals per game.
Yet all this promise could still founder if key players are injured, tired, or, as more often happens, short of full can you pick the most expensive canada goose parka strength and fitness through being rushed back too early. While all the other countries in South Africa could say the same, there is something about the sheer competitiveness of English domestic football that often works against the national team. “We play more games than anyone else and sometimes some of the tackles are really strong,” Capello says. “The most important thing next June is the physical condition of our best players.”
Don’t believe him? Try Sir Alex Ferguson then. An impartial witness if ever there was one. “The problem for us is that the Premier League is such a tribal war that you always have to try to win,” the Manchester United manager reckons. Of course the “us” in that sentence refers to United, and not England. But the point is well made. England have a great chance of winning the World Cup. As long as they canada goose coat 1000 bulbs garland come through all the battles on the home front first.
Hughes puts the Dunne deal in its place
Manchester City fans do not know whether to laugh or cry about losing Richard Dunne. Laugh goose, probably, since Aston Villa paid £6m for him and his opening-day display at Blackburn made it clear why Mark Hughes spent the whole summer stalking first John Terry and then Joleon Lescott. Cry because, like Maine Road and Oasis, Dunne was firmly in the City tradition of having risen above some obvious limitations to become really quite splendid.
The defender with a whole Google section devoted to his own goals and whose wife apparently conducted the compensation negotiations with City does not seem to know whether to laugh or cry about his latest move, either. He clearly fancied staying at City a while longer, both for the testimonial and to be a part of something exciting after so long as captain of a team of underachievers, and, due to the berlin film festival ends canada goose jacket sponsorship amid lack of time left after the protracted Lescott buy canada goose jacket toronto transfer, he probably feels he was hastily pushed out against his will.
Footballers are not paid their millions to have it both ways, however, and Hughes, who was transferred a time or two himself in his playing days, was quick to step in when Dunne began accusing canada goose coat 1000 bulbs lamps the club’s hierarchy of flogging him to raise money. Clubs can still do that, even mega-rich ones like City, and a condition that goes with the handsome salaries players now enjoy is that the paymaster can change at a moment’s notice.
Dunne seemed to expect loyalty from the club that tried to prise Kaká from Milan and Terry from Chelsea, before settling for breaking David Moyes’s will over Lescott. More surprising still, he did not realise that when Hughes told him his first-team chances would now be limited and he could talk to other clubs if he wished, it was a hint to get fixed up elsewhere and not an invitation to make himself comfortable.
