Let England Shake....

I have stolen the title from PJ Harvey’s 2011 Mercury Prize winning album, if I could write songs like her I wouldn’t have to worry about the mess English football is in, but I can’t so I have to worry! More about Polly Jean later.

Only in England can we lose a coach who in his last game beat the reigning World and European Champions and see our odds slashed to win the European Championship this summer. Only in England can we lose the coach with highest winning percentage in our National team’s history and see this as good news.

Fabio Capello is one of his generation’s finest minds and it’s worth reminding ourselves of his achievements

7 Serie A title with three different clubs, Milan, Juventus and Roma

2 La Liga titles with Madrid

Champions League with Milan

3 Suppercoppa’s in Italy

So, not to labour the point, 9 league titles, with 4 different teams, in 2 countries, and European Footballs Holy Grail with Milan in 1994: 4-0 in the final against a team from Spain by the way. His spell at Milan in the early 90’s is unmatched and the team he produced during that time would be in anyone’s top 5 and the English FA lose him 4 months from the start of a major tournament

I am sure there are many reasons why he left the job and we can speculate all we like but as the cliché goes, ‘at the end of the day’ Capello had had enough. The “Cult of Personality” that has developed around the England team since the arrival of the so called golden generation speaks to a wider issue in the country itself.

A country that is struggling to find its identity in the world and at war with itself: The 21 miles from Dover to the mainland of Europe may as well be a million miles as England is not in Europe, culturally, financially or philosophically. The country still carries the scars of a war fought and won almost 70 years ago and that greatest generation would turn in their graves at the sad state of the country that they knew. England’s green and pleasant lands have been replaced by concrete jungles that are no go areas after dark; the England that I grew up in has gone for good.

Now back to the football…..

How do you replace Capello? The England team has long revolved around he players and the belief that the best players can just roll up and beat old Johnny Foreigner. The rest of the world figured out long ago that the game is a team game and England’s group of individuals have consistently failed at the international level, Linekar, Shearer, Gascoigne, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Terry, Rooney, Cole were no match for Johnny Foreigner.  England’s superstar players showed the world what they were in South Africa in 2010, yet less that two year later Capello had started to make changes. The win against Spain, after being outplayed for large portions of the game, was a cause for optimism and for the first time in a long time there was a sense of England being more a team that a collection of pouty professionals. Capello declared that England couldn’t beat Spain at their own game and he was right. The problem for England is that they have been trying to beat everyone at their own game since 1966!

So where do England go now. The people’s choice Harry Redknapp, currently at Tottenham, well he’s won the FA Cup once but he’s English so he is in the frame. He also spent last week in court, a place that the former captain and role model John Terry will be seeing soon, interestingly enough Steven Gerrard who may take the armband from Terry knows what the inside of a court room looks like.  One wonders why a number of the current England team along with a good number of ex England players want Redknapp, the return of passion in the England team has everyone waiting with baited breath. Unfortunately the Passion they talk of is not a technically gifted midfielder that England desperately  needs, its that up and at em, backs to the wall, glorious failure, knees up mother brown bullsh*t  that you get tired of very quickly.

The Football Association of England overlooked Brian Clough, blacklisted Don Revie and didn’t do enough to keep Terry Venables. Harry Redknapp has done a great job at Tottenham but he isn’t in the same class as Clough, Venables or Revie, that’s how England has fallen.

Whoever inherits the poisoned chalice will have more than enough on his plate. He will take over a group of players with average technical ability and world class egos. He will have to deal with a press pack that is poorly educated with regard the game outside of the Premier League, and with one or two notable exceptions poorly educated in the finer points of the game. 

There is, however, a possible silver lining. The ‘golden generation’ should be all but finished by the end of the summer and a clean sweep is on the cards. If the new manager can dispense with the old guard and bring in players that are able to adapt to different tactical strategies then England will remain what they are: a decent team with a good qualification record and a good bet to get to the last eight of a major tournament, but you wouldn’t want to play them because sometimes that passion thing takes over.

So who should the FA choose. Of their last 5 appointments, Hoddle, Keegan, Eriksson, McLaren and Capello, only Eriksson and Capello have left the team better off than they found them. Hoddle, Keegan and McLaren were all disasters and their careers have never recovered, so why the clamour for an English coach? If I had to make the choice I would look to Marcelo Bielsa. He is doing a great job with Athletico Bilbao and had success at the international level with both Argentina and Chile. He knows how to deal with the press and his three hour press conferences should be enough to keep the English press busy. He introduced younger players into the Chilean team which is exactly what would be needed with England. He seems to me to be a great fit for England but there is just one problem…he isn’t English!

As promised a little more about Polly Jean Harvey. In musical terms she is more like Capello than Redknapp having won the Mercury Music Prize twice in 2001 and 2011. She won’t manage England but she has is qualified to, she was born in Dorset!