Source: Daily_Mail
Martin Samuel: The mark of Fabio Capello, a man we once knew
How do you intend to inform those players who are not going to theWorld Cup, Fabio Capello was asked yesterday. Had he replied that theinformation would be conveyed through the medium of jazz dance, nobodywould be in the least surprised. Not now.[LNB]We thought we knew him, before this week. We thought he was thevoice of reason. Everything was so logical, so unfussy. He dispatchedJohn Terry as captain in 10 minutes and made Rio Ferdinand hissuccessor without so much as a telephone call. He instilled discipline,he set standards, he won football matches. And then came the CapelloIndex. It lasted less than 24 hours as a going concern, but that wasenough.[LNB]At Stamford Bridge last weekend, an Italian journalist, on passing atelevision screen showing the Sony advertisement that features GrahamTaylor and Terry Venables as residents of an old people's home, sneeredcontemptuously. He did so from a position of moral superiority becausehis man, the imported saviour of English football, was above the lureof the cheesy commercial cash-in; or so we thought.[LNB] Ad men: Former managers Taylor (left) and Venables are in the money following this appearance in a commercial for Sony[LNB]Undetected, a crisis has been developing at the FootballAssociation's Wembley headquarters for several weeks. Capello had cut adeal that compromised his position as England manager, had been advisedagainst it, but was pressing on regardless. It was called the CapelloIndex and used the logical method of evaluation of one of the greatestcoaches in the world to calculate the worth of individual performancesand implement a ranking system, with a view to gambling.[LNB]FA executives, aware of the impending announcement of this digitaltime-bomb, had been poring over the manager's contract in the vain hopeof a veto clause. There was none. The FA had been so hot to trot afterthe failure to qualify for the European Championship under SteveMcClaren that they agreed to pay a man £6million a year, and did notbother to include a paragraph in his terms and conditions giving themsanction over any additional commercial arrangements. Unless Capellobrought the organisation into dispute he was untouchable, the ironybeing that, fortunately, what he was proposing was so potentiallydamaging it came close to falling into that category.[LNB]FAofficials identified the pitfalls and raised them immediately. Playersare irritated by marks out of 10 at the best of times. The differenceis, if some bloke in a tabloid gives Steven Gerrard five when he hasjust had his best game for England, it becomes a dressing room joke andnobody really gives a monkey's what the reporter thinks anyway. Itmakes zero impression on the confidence of the player, or the squad.[LNB]Aftera notorious miscarriage of justice in which one of Ashley Cole'sgreatest performances for England, in the 2004 European Championshipquarter-final with Portugal, was rewarded with an almost comically lowrating in one newspaper, 'Ashley Cole, three out of 10,' became araucous chant on the England team bus.[LNB] Three out of ten: But even Ashley Cole (left) could do little to prevent Helder Postiga (right) equalising for Portugal in Euro 2004[LNB]A bit different if the man behind the ranking is the Englandmanager, and the players being ranked are in his World Cup squad. If,halfway through the tournament this summer the Capello Index had placedno England player in its top 20, or rated England's next opponents ashaving performed substantially better, it would have sown a seed ofdoubt. As the Capello Index was to be used on every leading World Cupcontender it could have had an awkward galvanising effect, too. ImagineLionel Messi being told that Capello does not rate him, on the eve of atie with Argentina. A little extra motivation, maybe? [LNB] More from Martin Samuel... MARTIN SAMUEL: Football ain't fair game for Dave 'n' Nick13/05/10 Martin Samuel: It's Madness as Chelsea dance to a happy beat09/05/10 Martin Samuel: Carragher can't be King so why is he back for more?09/05/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: Shop wherever you like - just as long as it's Tesco06/05/10 Martin Samuel: Sorry City, it's a great result and Eastlands fans will approve06/05/10 Martin Samuel: Don't weep for Rafa Benitez, he made his own bed...04/05/10 Martin Samuel: Ribery case exposes the cowardice of our sweet FA02/05/10 MARTIN SAMUEL: Maddie, the heartrending dilemma30/04/10 VIEW FULL ARCHIVE The best managers remove problems, remove any excuse for defeat.Capello has always done that, his every instinct since taking the jobas England manager has been correct. This was a game-changer and, inthe circumstances, felt very alien. Suddenly he was viewed in a freshlight. [LNB]Announcing his squad yesterday, Capello said a decision on Gareth Barry would be made on the 34th of May. He said it twice. [LNB]Corrected by his FA minder that he meant the 24th, he claimed thatwas what he said. Somebody who has been learning the language for twoyears should at least know the numbers. Even English kids can reciteeins, zwei, drei or un, deux, trois. It was as if Capello had beenreplaced by a replica, channelling the spirit of inadequacies past.[LNB]Yetin previous conversations with the FA and at Monday's launch, whenconfronted with perfectly reasonable disquiet, Capello was utterlydismissive. He genuinely could not see a problem with a commercialventure in which he could be perceived to undermine his players. Hecould not comprehend that if England were to play Brazil, and everyBrazilian player was ahead of his English counterpart in the CapelloIndex, the manager could no longer talk up the chances of his teamwithout appearing deluded. [LNB]None out of ten: The ill-conceived Capello Index adds up to nothing but trouble[LNB]So what changed? Public opinion, reflected in the newspapers, changed. This turned into Capello's equivalent of the 39th Premier League game, or the proposed coalition of the damned put forward by Labour to the Liberal Democrats this week. It foundered on the rock of public opprobrium. Just as people looked at the 39th game, and saw it as an affront to the fans and an unfair appendage to the fixture programme one team would get an extra match against Wigan Athletic, the other against Manchester United, for heaven's sake so they saw a man earning £6m annually still feathering his nest.[LNB]Just as Labour feared the public would make them pay for seizing power and changing the voting system after a horrible election result, so Capello was finally made to see he would alienate England's most loyal followers if this was perceived to have harmed the chances of success in South Africa.[LNB] Capello claimed his Index was not money motivated and was intended to exist only as a service to fans, yet it was not a service that was requested by England supporters before its invention. The service they required was World Cup victory, and it is hard to believe this cause was going to be better provided for by regular bulletins from the manager that might not be positive.[LNB]Suppose there had been an Eriksson Index at the 2006 World Cup, when England played so poorly throughout the group stage? The mood in the camp would have been desperately depressed long before defeat on penalties by Portugal. The main beneficiaries of the Capello Index would not be the fans, but the company stakeholders, most specifically the marquee name steering the scheme.[LNB] Well: The recriminations for the Eriksson Index begin in Baden Baden as Wayne Rooney (left) registers his dissatisfaction with Steve McClaren and Sven[LNB]As such, Capello painted himself into a corner. As the controversy raged at Monday's announcement, one option would have been for the manager to take his Index lightly, to say it was only a bit of fun, like those marks out of 10 you read in newspapers. 'Did you see what that twerp gave Wayne Rooney? Six? Was he even at the bloody game?' Stakeholders, however, do not look to devalue their stake. So Capello talked up his Index as a justifiable tool of player evaluation.[LNB]'It is easy to speak to players and say look at your Index, you have to improve, you have to train more,' he said. Big mistake. Instantly, Capello legitimised all future questions about the Index by championing its accuracy. And there will be future questions if, as confirmed yesterday, there remains a plan to launch the Capello Index in time for the 2010-11 Premier League season.[LNB]At which point, new problems arise. Consider Sir Alex Ferguson's reaction faced with a set of statistics that indicated his Manchester United team was inferior to Manchester City, for instance, endorsed by the England manager.[LNB]Adrian Bevington, soon to be the managing director of what the FA term Club England, said negotiations would now continue with Capello's business partners over the future of the project. What is to negotiate? This is surely a deal breaker, unless Capello returns from Johannesburg with a gold trophy and an impossibly strong bargaining position. All of the issues that make the Capello Index so problematic now would only resurface next season.[LNB]The final negative to emerge from this sorry affair is that it affords the impression that Capello is planning for a life beyond England already. Why would he be exploiting commercial avenues otherwise? Just when it looked as if the England scene was stable until at least the 2012 European Championship, there is now uncertainty.[LNB]A 5,000-word explanation of the scoring system still resides on the Capello Index, but the numbers add up to nothing but trouble. The saving grace is that if this was the first embarrassment of Capello's reign as England manager, at least it was over quickly and now we move on. As a final concession, the FA should let him release his Capello Index as requested next season; he could update it every month, on the 34th.[LNB] [LNB]Enjoy it Fulham ...while it lastsFulham, we all love Fulham, don't we? Lovely old Fulham. Good luck in the Europa League final tonight, men. And financial regulations. We all want tighter financial regulations, don't we? Stop clubs spending more than they earn. No more debacles like Portsmouth. And Fulham in the Europa League final, obviously. No more debacles like that.[LNB]Oh sorry, didn't you realise? Fulham: completely skint, really. Lost £6.8million last year, £7.5m the year before, £15.2m in 2007, debt level in the region of £167.8m, much of it owed to Mohamed Al Fayed, the owner. So Fulham are precisely the sort of the club which, when UEFA president Michel Platini gets his way, will be banned from European competition.[LNB]Even if Al Fayed wanted to donate rather than lend and if this was the compromise, it would be logical Platini would rule against it.[LNB]Money talks: Fulham sold Smalling for £10m[LNB]Fulham are set to make a profit for a change this season, but can hardly rely on selling their best young player to Manchester United for £10m each year, as happened with Chris Smalling, or getting to the final of a European competition; particularly if UEFA will not allow them to enter one.[LNB]So no more dreams. No more losses in the cause of glory. Fulham will never be able to compete with Juventus or Hamburg again, because Juventus are traditionally huge and therefore wealthy and Hamburg's average gate is 55,240, which will afford them significantly greater spending power.[LNB]No matter that Al Fayed has recently sold a business for £1.5billion and may wish to plough some of it into having fun with a football club, no matter that his investment has given Fulham supporters the greatest nights of their lives. Once we get financial fair play, Fulham can look forward to decades of regulated mediocrity, watching the rich win all the competitions in which they once stood a chance. Make the most of tonight, lads, you may never pass this way again.[LNB] [LNB]Gianfranco Zola was sacked yesterday, having led West Ham United to their worst points total in the history of the Premier League. With that record, it can only be a matter of time before he meets Nick Clegg with a view to forming the next Government.[LNB] [LNB]
