A Look Back At Fabio Capello's Time In Charge

His Appointment

When he first took over, i like many others thought 'Hey ya know, he might not have been who i had in mind, but this might not be half bad'.. Capello had established a reputation as a no-nonsense disciplinitarian and just like a concept right outta Sex and the City, we were looking for a new man who was nothing like the last idiot (The wally with a Brolly), a rapidly emerging theory at the time, was that our spoilt, pampered, egotistical players had become complacent and lost all appreciation for the honour they recieve, to represent their national team, something millions of englishmen would give their left teste for.

Furthermore Englands key players had been increasing accused of resting on their laurels, taking their position for granted and living upon reputation alone. This did seem to hold some subtance, as such players had been performing poorly yet were maintaining their position within the team without questioning, often due inpart to their significantly greater club form.

Capello was a man clearly not scared to make big calls and leave out big names, he had infamously left David Beckham out of his squad during his spell at Real Madrid, now with the exception of the fact that David Beckham, a player i personally would like to see within the team, would inevitably become frozen out of the England setup due to his clash with Fabio Capello, i did however feel some of the other players could do with a slap back to reality at the hand of the italian disciplinitarian.

His first game in charge

Fabio enjoyed brief success when he first took over. His first game saw a 2 - 1 Victory over Switzerland and then perhaps more significantly his did what the two managers before him could not. Firstly he oversaw a 4 - 1 victory against the very country that had ensured we did not qualify for the Euro 2008 tournament under the control of Steve McClaren, our new found rivals... Croatia... Furthermore how ironic that it should be a sensational performance by the Wonderkid Theo Walcott, whom prior England manager, Sven Goren Erikson had deemed flew all the way to the previous tournament but been too stupidly cautious to give him the chance to florish as Michael Owen had done in the 1998 World cup.

Fabio continued to bring results and remained unbeaten, securing World cup qualification with two games remaining, this was a mighty relief after not taking part in the Euro's at all but alas this is where the fairytale ends for Fabio Capello...

The start of his downfall

October 2009: Suffers first loss in a qualifying game, 1-0 to Ukraine in Donetsk, when goalkeeper Robert Green is sent off.

His faith and judgement of Goalkeeper Rob Green earns fabio Capello his first official loss, oh if only Fabio knew this would not be the first, nor the last time that his selection of Rob Green should backfire.

February 2010: Strips Terry of captaincy after problems in his private life. Confirms Ferdinand as Terry’s replacement.
We now know that Fabio U-turned on this decision, re-instating John Terry furtherdown the line and angering Rio Ferdinand in the proccess, though this should not become apparent for a long time but as we now know, Rio Ferdinand has refused to take captaincy following Terry's 2012 Racisim row.

May 2010: Names 23-man World Cup squad, Most notably including Emile Heskey and excluding Theo Walcott.
This was the main moment i became strongly opposed to Fabio Capello, it was such promosing displays such as Theo Walcott's hatrick against Croatia that Capello had to thank for getting to the competition in the first place and here he was making the same mistakes as managers before him, think Sven not fielding Walcott... Just to make it worse, Capello included Englands all time statistically fruitless Centre Forward (Emile Heskey) in a major miscalculation, Heskeys goal return for club and country had been very disapointing but Capello stayed adamant that he was in the squad because he held the ball up well but last i checked games werent decided upon which team held the ball up longest.Its also worth noting another player who had found refuge under Fabio Capello, Gareth Barry, Fabio seemed increasing proud of himself for apparently solving the long since brain teaser of how to solve the Gerrard-Lampard conundrum. This will later prove to be another major misculation as Mehmet Ozil skins Gareth Barry for pace, despite Barry having a headstart on the German winger and ultimately executing a rather pityful attempt to get back to prevent the goal.

June 2010: Presides over disastrous World Cup campaign. Ferdinand injured on first day of training so Gerrard takes over as skipper. Opening draws against the United States and Algeria, when Wayne Rooney condemns England’s fans. Terry criticises atmosphere in camp. Beats Slovenia to secure a knockout phase berth. Crushed by Germany 4-1 in Bloemfontein.

Player morale
Fabio's decision to keep the players under lock and key was seemingly not working, the players were miserable and bored and not enjoying their campaign, morale was suffering and cracks were starting to appear, just look at footage of the England team during Italia 90 to see an stark contrast between general happiness of players, Gazza and the likes were drinking, bonding as a team and florishing from it as a result.

Group stages
The opening game saw a goalkeeping blunder from Rob Green (Not for the first time), which ulimately ensured we drew to minnows USA. Just as a US newspaper reported the next day "USA wins 1 - 1", it was a must win game.
He failed to realise that in his midst he had a Goalkeeper who just may become the best Goalkeeper in the world in the near future (Joe Hart) and a well established and experienced Goalkeeper in David James, personally i was fully rooting for Joe Hart long before the World cup and was dismayed that Capello failed to identify him as a real talent.

The following games were tedious, boring and uninspiring, we scraped through without many goals or signs of attractive football and team cohesion.

England vs Germany
Firstly i would like to say that Capello foolishly backed a defender struggling along with his club to maintain premier league status in Matthew Upson, he would ultimately lead West Ham to relegation and his incapability to save a team from defeat should have been recognised long before the world cup.
Secondly as previously mentioned Gareth Barry showed shocking pace and desire to prevent the Mehmet Ozil goal
The ultimate error for me came when he subbed on Emile Heskey when we were 4 - 2 down, i knew at this point that we had no chance of a comeback now, in a time when we desperately needed a goal, he brought on our worst striker in the history of English internationals, as far as goal return was concerned. This is a man who is given £6,000,000 a year to make this level of judgement and decisions.

Post South Africa World Cup
Fans had now lost faith in Fabio capello and i suspect the F.A had too, somebody would have to pay for the complete disapointment of the world cup

Friendlies and World cup Qualifying

What then happened was highly frustrating, Fabio Capello began handing caps out left right and centre, almost entirely changing his lineup every single game, he claimed he was "Testing" , this really begged the question why had this not been done earlier, he was now in charge for nearly three years, why were we still testing, he should surely know his best team by now, World and European Champions Spain were in no doubt of their best lineup and had barely changed it throughout the two whole campaigns and consistancy and stability was clearly the successfull model to be followed, should anything be learnt from them. However Capello ignored this entirely, handing out caps to Championship player Jay Bothroyd which was the last straw.
Fabio announces he will resign after the Euro 2012 campaign
This just begged the question, why not just go with immediate effect, he clearly wasnt invested for the long term and being of Italian nationality cared not for the team on a patriotic level but then even though he is clearly a big idiot, he is not so silly to give up a 6 million a year pay packet, the F.A would not wish to sack him having to compensate probably a very large ammount given his salary, so they would just have to let him see out his contract and then remove him, this was frustrating because this essentially meant we would probably have only another uninspiring 2012 campaign to follow before fixing the problem.
Fabio voiding his contract.... did this finally give the F.A the chance they had long since waited for to get rid of him, giving him a gentle nudge towards resigning to save face.