Is Capello the right man for the England job?

Yes

5 of 15

by Phil Hill

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We soccer fans in England have been telling ourselves that we have the best footballers in the world for years. With the exception of the 1966 World Cup, which we won on home territory and the 1990 tournament in Italy, when Bobby Robson guided us to the semi finals, England has never really threatened to win anything.

So, is our self belief that we are going to win every competition before a ball has been kicked misguided? Or should we be winning? Under Sven Goran Erikkson, the team reached two World Cup quarter finals, but both times that looked about as far as we should have gone. Then under Steve MacLaren, disaster struck. The team failed to qualify for the Euro finals this summer. Sure, some pundits blamed the players. But the overwhelming view was that England has world class players who should be performing better on the international stage. It was the coach who got the blame and the sack.

Ideally,it would have been good to see MacLaren replaced by an Englishman. But there are few quality English coaches on the scene. There was talk of Sam Allardyce, but he would have been similar to MacLaren in that he was never really tested at the highest level. So, the Football Association decided to splash out millions on an Italian solution. They went for Fabio Capello and his compatriot back up team. The deal has cost millions of pounds. The FA has basically gone for broke.

I applaud the bold move. We have seen enough talking in England. Now we need action. Get one of the world's top coaches. Give him a free rein. That way we will be able to see if we truly have some of the top players or whether we have been kidding ourselves. Capello's first job is to make sure England qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The qualifying group seems reasonable enough. We are again pitched against Croatia, the team who humiliated us in the Euro qualifying games. But the rest of the group should be a cake walk. But we will see.

If Capello fails to get us to South Africa, there must either be some serious talking - maybe he should be sacked. Or we should hold our hands up and say we are struggling to compete at the very top level. Maybe we simply do not produce enough quality players. Hopefully Fabio and the Italian connection will prove we were right to be optimistic in the past. Time will tell. But it is something we need to have a shot at.

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