Capello: Still the right man for the job?

Fabio Capello has done the decent thing and sorted out his position with England in advance of the World Cup after Inter Milan made it plain they wanted him to replace Jose Mourinho.

This is, without a doubt, a good thing for England. Doubt over the manager’s future going into the World Cup can only unsettle the players and take their minds off the job. It wouldn’t have been nice for the fans either.

Capello has now committed to England until 2012, however, and the nation rejoices. But should it?

The Italian is obviously a very good manager. His record speaks for itself and his time with England has been largely successful. The World Cup qualifying campaign was almost flawless, friendlies have been handled well without the usual over exuberance following a win or the utter despair following a defeat. Everything, we were told, was as it should be.

Why, then, do I feel a sense of doubt regarding Capello and his running of our national side? I should be full of confidence, I should feel that there is no better man to manage the good, if not great, players we have. I should be excited by the football we play and the way the players appear to have overcome the lack of confidence that has undermined previous international tournament performances. But I’m not.

As the World Cup has got nearer and nearer I have seen cracks in both Capello and the team. His ill-fated and ultimately ‘postponed’ Capello Index was just the first thing that got me wondering. How could he make such a bizarre decision when everything he had done beforehand was near perfection? It couldn’t have been the money, surely – he gets paid £6 million a year by the FA.

Whatever prompted his agreement to put his name to a website that would have seen him rate his own players after every World Cup match, it was a huge mistake.

Then there was the 30-man provisional squad and the Austria training camp. On the whole, decent preparation for the tournament, but the treatment of Michael Dawson and Scott Parker was a little strange, especially if you believe what Harry Redknapp said about them being ignored and treated like “ghosts”. Why pick them then?

The performances against Mexico and Japan, admittedly with experimental teams, were not impressive and couldn’t have done much to build confidence in the team ahead of South Africa. And as confidence is the biggest problem with England it could be said that this was a major own goal by the manager.

The majority of pundits have suggested that Capello knew his final 23 before these games and used them to simply confirm what he already knew. I can’t help but think that is counter-productive. Better, surely, to use his first choice eleven, get some big wins and build that confidence. That would also have given Capello the opportunity to take a smaller provisional squad to Austria and avoid the headache of delivering bad news to seven players.

Which brings me on to the last thing that has unsettled me. The way the news about Capello’s final choices for the World Cup squad was drip fed via various journalists on Twitter and other social media forms, as well as on TV and radio was ridiculous. We all knew the squad well before the FA’s official announcement at 4pm on Tuesday.

You can only wonder at what the payers made of it all. Darren Bent Tweeted about his exclusion well before 4pm, Robert Green was interviewed on Sky Sports about his inclusion well before lunchtime. The players who were going were sent flight details via text well before the official announcement – while those who weren’t selected were not. It’s not hard to imagine Frank Lampard, say, texting Tom Huddlestone about the flight only to discover that poor old Tom knew nothing about them, leaving him wondering about his place before Fabio deigned to call him and deliver the bad news.

It is, I’ll admit, a case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It is the right thing to do to inform the players not going personally and ahead of any announcement. If the unlucky seven had found out any other way Capello would have been slaughtered by the media. I can’t help but think it could have been handled better though.

A month ago I was full of hope and excitement regarding England’s chances in South Africa. I’m not one for blind faith and I didn’t think we had much of a chance of winning the trophy, but I thought some decent performances against some of the world’s better sides would indicate a big step forward, not least in the player’s overall confidence when wearing the three Lions.

A semi final would, for me, have been significant progress and would make this news of Capello’s commitment much more pleasing. All of the above during the last month has, however, seriously undermined that hope and excitement.

I now feel trepidation and if England put in their usual tournament form – a half decent group stage, really good second round and quarter final ‘heroic’ disappointment – keeping Capello as manager might not look like such a good decision. Oh, and we’d have to pay him a fortune to get rid of him.

Come June 11th I know the excitement will be back and some element of faith will return, but for now I have serious doubts. I can only hope the players don’t share them.

How do you feel about England’s chances going into the World Cup? Is your faith in Fabio Capello as strong as ever or are you suffering from niggling doubt yourself? Let us know in the comments.