And so, the soap opera that is the English football team claims another victim. Potential England managers beware. Your every move is media fodder. Talk about your replacement is commonplace even while you're in the job. And if you do something the FA don't like, they might not stand behind you.
There is a term from employment law called constructive dismissal. It means that while your employer may not have fired you, they made it impossible for you to continue in your job, thereby achieving the same thing. This is the situation Fabio Capello found himself in last week, and that is why he had no choice but to go.
Since taking over in 2007, Capello has had the job of running a team whose egos and expectations greatly exceed their abilities. He hasn't been spectacularly good, but neither has he imploded, and in the England job, that is an achievement in itself. After beginning his career with a wrangle about whether to field David Beckham, Capello has qualified comfortably for the past few major tournaments, and pulled off a few nice results in the process, including beating world champions Spain in a friendly. Where the team's shortcomings have been exposed, most notably against Germany in 2010, they are more the result of a structural failure of English football to deliver the kind of players needed than any major tactical issues. Perhaps most importantly, Capello is the first English manager in decades with a serious managerial pedigree, having won titles with every club he ever managed, including leading AC Milan through a hugely successful spell in the early 1990s, culminating in the club winning the 1994 Champions' League.
While he has never managed to repeat that level of achievement, he has been reasonably successful since, and England's decision to hire him, rather than an Englishman, looks to have been the right one. There has been a serious paucity of decent English managers in the game in recent years, and while national pride is important, results are what count.
And yet, for all this, Capello has been consistently dogged by problems. Manufactured media scandals follow his every decision, and every peccadillo of the players. A few years ago, rumours that he was about to depart for the Roma job swirled around. More recently, he has been forced to endure endless talk about when Harry Redknapp was coming in to replace him. And now we have the whole John Terry debacle.
John Terry is not a shining example of humanity. Following the revelations of his affair with then-Chelsea and England teammate Wayne Bridge's ex-girlfriend, Capello was essentially forced to strip him of the England captaincy, before restoring him to the position. Last week, Capello attempted to stand firm over retaining Terry in the aftermath of racism charges being brought against him. This time he was overruled.
Racism is a problem in professional football and has been for a long time. In the wake of the Terry scandal and the business about Luis Suarez, it appears a clampdown is finally happening. In this light, John Terry is exactly the wrong man to captain a mixed-race team, particularly given that one of his England teammates, Rio Ferdinand, is the brother of the player Terry abused. The problem is that none of us are in possession of the reasons Capello picks his team captain. Maybe, in a team of such competing egos, someone like John Terry is needed to keep things in check. In any case, much as outsiders may cluck and tut at Capello's support for Terry, they should remember that, as team manager, the decision is Fabio Capello's alone.
Whatever reason Capello had for retaining Terry, it appears the FA saw things differently. At this point they had two options which would have been acceptable. They could have stated, correctly, that it is not their place to interfere with the day-to-day running of the national team and the decision was Capello's. Alternatively, they could have stated that due to irreconcilable differences, Capello was being sacked.
Instead they chose to weasel their way out of things by overruling Capello. In doing this they violated a key principle, that of back them or sack them. Top end managers will inevitably insist on complete control of their team. They are, after all, the ones who will take the fall if the team does poorly, and responsibility without authority is unworkable. Whatever the suggestions that this may have been a convenient excuse for Fabio Capello to walk away from the team; the reality is that the FA behaved in a thoroughly dishonourable way. Letting Capello make his own decision might have been unpopular, but it would have been right. Firing him might have made the FA look petty, but it was the only decent alternative. Instead, Capello is the one who comes out badly, as he walked away from a team before a major tournament.
Now what? The England manager's position has always been, to put it mildly, something of a challenge. It's bad enough that the media second guess your decisions, but now the FA have set a precedent that they too might overstep their prerogatives and interfere with the team. The fact that a new manager might extract a promise from the FA not to do this is irrelevant, as no doubt Capello thought he had such a guarantee. The upshot is that the job, never overly popular in the first place, is now going to look even more toxic.
Of course, there really is only one candidate for the job. With the naked racism that the English media thinks is bluff honesty, it has been decided that only an Englishman can manage the English team properly. And, of course, that means Harry Redknapp, undoubtedly the best English manager in the game at the moment.
The problem with the "Redknapp to the rescue" is that it is long on hope and short on reality. Harry looks the part of the traditional gaffer, but beyond that, what is there to recommend him? Granted, he got Spurs to the Champions League quarter-finals, but set that against Capello's glittering resume, and it looks less of an achievement. His trophy cabinet consists of an FA Cup and an Intertoto Cup win, whereas Capello has won league titles with four different clubs and the Champions League with AC Milan. Harry's main asset, his ability to spot a bargain, will count less in the international game.
The problem is that there is now such an aura of inevitability about Redknapp's appointment that none of the parties have a choice. Harry wants the job, and even if he didn't, saying no would be very difficult indeed. Were the FA to offer anyone else the position, the media would have a field day. And, most importantly, the shabby treatment of Fabio Capello is going to deter an awful lot of candidates.
So Harry gets the job, then what? The structural problems in English football will persist. There is no great overhaul of player development on the horizon of the sorts that revolutionised German, French and Spanish national teams, so Harry is going to have exactly the same type of player as has failed to win anything in nearly fifty years. Two more trophyless tournaments and the media will be calling for his head.
The English job was always football's poisoned chalice. Thanks to Fabio Capello's resignation, it has just got a little more toxic. Without major changes at all levels of the game in England, the long spell in the wilderness shows no sign of ending. However, as long as they continue to blame the manager, England will never face up to this reality.
Citing his success at Sierra Games' little-known 1998 title Ultimate Soccer Manager 98, Greg Bowler has formally applied for the England job and expects good news very soon.
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