Capello Is on the Right Path

2008/3/27 15:47:33

Why does the England team particularly deserve attention? One very important reason is that there truly is no other team in the world so distinctively characteristic as England, yet so wildly inconsistent, so humanly interesting yet unreliable. Like having a pile of very distinctive parts — how to connect them into an organic whole has become a matter of interest for the world's top coaches.

Some say England just lacks an organizing midfielder — with a Gascoigne, everything would be different. That's nonsense. If England had this and that, would they still be the current England team? Would they still pose the most serious technical challenge to the world's top coaches?

Now, the biggest reality is that England's players have all become componentized due to the excessive success of the Premier League. And the bigger problem is that these components are not fully compatible — they weren't manufactured as a matching set. Under these conditions, how to adapt to circumstances and creatively bond together a whole — a lethal, stable, and disciplined whole — is one of the greatest challenges posed to the world's top coaches.

What makes a top coach? One who can bond second- and third-rate players into a first-rate team. And Capello clearly has this potential and is gradually demonstrating it for us.

This morning, Capello's England already displayed its charming qualities in the first half. Mind you, France is one of the most difficult teams in the world. Brazil is formidable enough, but in the World Cup they have fallen to France for N decades running. Yet in today's first half, the aura England created on the pitch momentarily suppressed and held in check that invincible French aura. As for the penalty, it cannot erase this qualitative progress. This is an unprecedented occurrence in England's matches for many years — it didn't even exist in that once-in-a-lifetime 5-1 victory over Germany on German soil.

The second half was purely for evaluating player conditions and had little tactical substance. It also proved that England's traditional 4-4-2 formation is indeed no longer suited to the current squad, because the components needed for a 4-4-2 simply do not exist.

Capello is on the right path, and with his shrewdness and character, he will certainly persist on this path. Now, what Capello probably needs most is to discover better components based on the blueprint already in hand and ensure that every position has backup components of comparable quality.