Fabio Capello used only one word of English in yesterday’s press conference before his first game in charge. “Boss!” he said. He had promised that all his words would be in English when he was appointed manager in December; let us hope that he is able to keep other promises, such as winning a few football matches.
In truth, Capello sees himself as more than capo, which is Italian for “boss”. More like capo di tutti capi. Tonight, we will see if all this hard-man stuff actually works.
Capello, the Italian super-coach, has gone to some trouble to show that he is absolutely beastly. Boss, it seems, is what the England players can call him when he is in a good mood. He calls the England players by their surnames: Ferdinand! Run the defence! Gerrard! You’re captain, so do what I tell you! Cole major, left back! Cole minor, left midfield!
Capello has already made a great point of discipline. Lateness will not be tolerated. He was 33 minutes late for the press conference, but that was presumably to make a point: gentlemen, I hope we have a long and useful relationship, and please be clear right from the start that I despise you all. Capello has made his own position clear. Fair enough: any England manager can do anything he likes; until he starts losing, of course.
The event was held in a room at Arsenal’s training ground in London Colney, Hertfordshire, and it was done up like a United Nations do. We were all issued with headsets, so that we might have a translation dinning in our ears as Capello expounded his thoughts on the 4-4-2 system in the language of Dante. That it should come to this, for an England manager! Mind you, we could have done with some help with the speculative grammar of previous incumbents such as Glenn Hoddle and Graham Taylor.
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Capello came in at last, clad in England training gear. He looked slightly diminished as a result, as serial suit-wearers over 60 tend to in sporty clothes. He proceeded to play the press with care and circumspection. Cricket isn’t a big thing in Italy, but Capello - or should I write Boss? – knows what a dead bat is.
So what are his views? He didn’t say. What about his choice of captain? He’s a good player. What about tactics? He’s not saying. What do England need to do to improve? Play more like England. Are you a messiah? It’s all about reaching results through hard work. It wasn’t exactly Churchillian.
All that was clear was that here was a man profoundly committed to his own egomania. He emphasised more than once that he wanted the England team to “move the way I want. I want the England team, my team, to move the way I want. I want to bring my technical ideas into the team. Some of them will have to adapt.”
If the players do what he tells them, they will win a lot of football matches. Well, that is Capello’s belief, and it seems unshakeable. It is now an England footballer’s job to become an extension of Capello’s will.
When you are training a young horse, you go through a number of apparently meaningless exercises, all of which are designed to instil not technical ability but the habit of obedience. In the same way, Capello has been extorting obedience from his charges as if they were new bugs at the big school.
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No golf. “It is better that they stay in their own room.” Not that golf is bad: rather, obeying Capello is good. And if you’re in your room, don’t think you can call room service.That’s banned as well. No mobile phones outside your room. WAGs are banned, so are agents.
And he was gone, leaving us journos to something never before experienced at an England football press conference. It wasn’t exactly a hostile performance: just a rather extreme demand for respect. Capello has laid down his hard-man credentials: all we have to do is see if they work. We can judge tonight, then again in seven weeks’ time in France, and a couple more times before the friendlies run out and Capello’s England team begin their qualification campaign for the World Cup of 2010 against Andorra in September.
Self-styled hard-man managers win things. So do all other types of human being. Hard men don’t have a monopoly on victory.
Capello has merely laid down some big statements about style: the style in which he will win and lose. And in football, in any sport, style means nothing. Winning and losing is the only truth.