Capello the immigrant and the truth about England
Some time ago (although it seems like only yesterday) I wrote that Steve McClaren shouldn't be blamed for England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008*. And so it is again. The game of scapegoating for England's World Cup failures had found an early target in Rob Green, but memories of his butterfingered silliness are fading away. Now the new target is Fabio Capello, or more specifically, foreigners in general.
It's a simplistic narrative which I've covered time and time again here with regards to other matters - in a lot of ways it's one of the defining narratives of our time. Labour blame immigration for losing them the election. The victorious Coalition plan to crack down on skilled immigrants - that's skilled immigrants - just to make a point, blaming them for unemployment. Our news narratives blame immigrants for everything from crime to unemployment to the erosion of the 'British way of life'. It's got to the point now where toads like Leo McKinstry can make a healthy career out of peddling this bullshit time and time and time after time - he even pre-empted the latest soul-searching with a particularly poisonous article about how immigration had wrecked the England football team's chances in South Africa.
When in doubt, blame immigration. If you're looking for someone to fit up, pick on the immigrant. It's easier that way, because it means you don't have to address any of the difficult stuff. Tabloids and Governments alike enjoy blaming immigrants - tabloids because it's the faceless bogeyman and taps into the fears of middle-class white folk in Surrey who rarely see a brown face but just don't like the unknown; Governments because everyone needs a scapegoat, and it's hard to assess the impact of immigration on society in such a short space of time, and it means you can deflect attention away from the real reasons why unemployment is rising, why the economy is shot, why people are feeling the pinch, and so on.
Fabio Capello is, after all, an immigrant from the EU, doing a job that a UK resident could have done. He is that which we have been told to dislike. Could things be really so different if 'Arry stepped in from White Hart Lane and did a bit of cockney mooching around the touchline, and played something other than a 4-4-2? Is that all it would take to take a team of flops whose first touch bounces off their knees 20 yards and out for a throw-in into a bunch of world-beaters? Probably not. But that doesn't matter. People feel happier with an Englishman in charge of England. Pity for McClaren that he wasn't good enough, although it wasn't really his fault in so many ways. He was stuck with the same 'Golden Generation' who can't pass, tackle or shoot as well as their counterparts from younger footballing nations. He was stuck with the same expectations from players and public alike - and the same sense of entitlement.
England don't deserve to reach the finals of any tournament. They don't get a bye to the group stages just because they're England - they have to earn everything out there. But there is a whiff of entitlement about the players, a sense that they belong in the World Cup and that everyone else is just making up the numbers. The media buy into this too - when the group draw was revealed, the Sun's headline was EASY using the words England, Algeria, Slovenia and Yanks to make up the acronym. There's a sense that England deserve to win something, because of the Premier League, and, well, that's about it really.
Now I don't begrudge the players' thousands of pounds a week for turning up and doing their jobs - that's fair enough by me, and they pay their taxes, so that's not the reason in itself. It's the idea that stuff leaks out about how they think they should be playing. Where do you think all that stuff about Steve Gerrard being better behind Rooney came from? Did loads of journalists all come to the same conclusion? Or did someone have a word? When John Terry muttered about Joe Cole (who was shit when he came on against Algeria) deserving a place in the side, he was just being unsubtle, because he did it on the record. That's not the way it's done, traditionally. And then you see the presence of David Beckham lingering around everywhere in the background - a reminder of another of the 'Golden Generation' who isn't going anywhere, who once was top dog and decided where he would play on any given occasion, even in a ridiculous 'quarterback' position which led to defeat against Northern Ireland. But who got the blame? The manager. When in doubt, blame the manager. Blame everyone except the players.
You have to wonder whether anyone can really be a successful manager of an England team. The Premiership might be exciting to watch, but English players aren't learning their craft well enough to convert it into tournament success. So few English players bother going to Europe to learn. As we've seen, top-level football commentators know next to nothing about many other leagues in Europe. It's that English arrogance - we've got the best league in the world, why should we bother looking at any others? Why bother to see how other countries do it? We're better than them! Give McClaren his credit, he's made a success in Europe and he's moved on and moved up. Have the players who once performed so badly under him in England shirts? Probably not.
It's not xenophobic to say that foreign players are stopping English players from getting a chance in the Premier League. But it is wrong to imagine that foreign players are the main reason. If English players were better and more skilful, for example, they'd push the imports out on merit. Is it a question of the immigrants undercutting wages, as is the accusation with other trades? Probably not. I'm not even going to blame the Murdoch millions for ruining football. I can't stand the man as much as anyone else, but that's not the cause. I just seem to get the impression that in other countries, like Germany - who fully deserved their victory yesterday - the national league and the national football organisation work together to try and prepare things as best as possible. In England, that doesn't appear to me to be the case. The Premiership exists to hoover up money. Anything that jeopardises that - a winter break, fewer matches, whatever - will be rejected. It's as simple as that.
Capello will probably go, I should imagine. The pressure will mount on him, as it did against all previous managers. The tabloids have already started. Presumably there will be unpleasant intrusion into the private life, just as there was with Rob Green, long-lens pictures, and all sorts of ghosts from the past waiting to sell their dirty tales for a few quid. The soul-searching will carry on. Why can't England win? For me, the answers are simple, and I say all this as an England fan. We aren't good enough. The players are overrated. Technically, we lag behind most other nations, who are well organised and coached. The players demand they play where they want to play, in the systems they play for their club sides, rather than fit together for a common purpose in, you know, a team. The top dogs demand that they do whatever they want, and these demands find a way of ending up in the papers. Managers aren't listened to. That won't change with Honest 'Arry coming in. It won't be long before the first player who gets dropped starts grumbling from the touchline, or the first player who feels he'd rather be playing there rather than here starts making it known.
And so it all starts again. Blame the immigrant. Blame the foreign manager. Blame the foreign players. Blame everyone except the star striker who wasn't good enough, the captain who wouldn't play where he was told to play, and the others who decided not to turn up in South Africa. Blame, blame, blame. But it won't change anything. And we'll be back here again soon enough after another tournament knockout, another non-qualification, head-scratching again. There can't be anything wrong with England... they deserve to win, don't they?
* Re-reading it now with the benefit of hindsight, a few things spring to mind. McClaren may not have been good enough at the time but he's marked himself out as a decent club coach. He was out of his depth with England at the time, but you have to wonder who really would be 'in their depth' with that job.
No related posts.
Buy my book, it’s great
Switch site
Donate
Recent Posts
- Workbrain
- So Solid Wiki fun
- Quentin Letts killed by a woodchipper
- I just sent Robin round
- Kim Jong Ill
Most Commented On
Recent Comments
- Maeva on Tarts and hookers
- Merrick on Workbrain
- Maxine on Workbrain
- Sirenofbrixton on Workbrain
- Katie on Workbrain
About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
If you're struggling to read the site please use the drop down box below to increase the text size.
June 28th, 2010 - 19:53
I am not a football fan. I use to watch it until I was about 15 (I supported Leeds in the days of Lorimer et al), but rarely since then. But when my neighbours starting screeching in despair on Sunday, the missis insisted we turned it on. And I can confidently declare that England were CRAP. The way the Germans handled the ball was a billion times more skillful, even to my utterly untutored eye. Where the Angles gained any advantage, it was by dint of a kind of neanderthal exuberance, which as I recall is what got people on the school team when I was at school. England lost coz they can’t play football very well. If our leagues are packed with non-English players, it’s probably because they can.
June 28th, 2010 - 20:27
Thing is, for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth that’s been going on in the press it’s easy to overlook the fact that at least we GOT to the group stages. It’s more than France and Italy managed, but then again the France debacle seems to represent the end point of everything you’re talking about – supreme arrogance from the players coupled with an inability to work as part of a team.
I doubt that managers as experienced as Domenech or Capello have suddenly become crap because it’s a World Cup, especially as Domenech’s actually won the bloody thing before! Yet still it is they who get the blame for it all going wrong – assuming it even DID go wrong. I think England’s finishing position in this World Cup seems about right for the calibre of players to be honest…
June 28th, 2010 - 21:05
Spot on. The lack of coherence and drive on that pitch was depressing as all fuck. I’ve heard that the attitude of the Engand players in the dressing room is not exactly a model of national pride and devotion, which sort of makes you wonder what exactly all the tabloid jingoism is buying us.
June 28th, 2010 - 22:05
Thank God England didn’t progress very far in this tournament.
Not exactly a shining light for football, are we? ‘It doesn’t matter that we’ve abandoned all youth development, bought the best players for our league, forced the working class out of the game, just pay the most money for the best coach and we should be able to buy it.’.
Rotten to the core.
June 28th, 2010 - 23:11
Good article, and I agree to a point but surely the manager is ultimately responsible if players aren’t performing, as he’s the one who chooses the squad. Rooney was awful in the first three games, why was it assumed he would be good in the fourth? And why was Darren Bent not even on the plane to South Africa despite the tremendous season he had?
Picking the same old players time and time again surely only increases the sense of entitlement you talked about. As a Bolton fan I may be a tad biased here but I bet if Capello gave Kevin Davies his first senior cap in August’s game against Hungary then I bet he would show far more passion for that one friendly than Rooney did for all his world cup matches. (Whether he’d be good enough is a different matter of course!)
I certainly agree that it isn’t all Capello’s fault. I personally think he should be given another chance for Euro 2012, and that the FA should heed his advice and lighten the game schedule. Scrapping the pointless League Cup (or to give it it’s proper title: The YOURCOMPANYNAMEHERE Cup) would be a start (We already have the FA cup, so why do we another knockout competition?) and also get rid of FA cup replays (as well as less games and no schedule disruption another bonus of no replays would be more penalty shoot-outs which could help England players!)
Like yourself I don’t buy the tired old line that foreigners are spoiling it for young English players and that the vast number of foreigners is our league is a result not a cause of a lack of quality English players. And if it wasn’t for these foreign players filling the gaps left by English players not being good enough, those who do get on the England team wouldn’t be getting as much quality experience.
Rather than stick a cap on foreigners as so many are calling for, I would instead force all clubs to spend at least x% of their income on youth development. At the moment I fear most are taking the short term option of importing players for the sake of promotion (including getting into Europe) or survival and the TV revenue that comes with it.
In fact I would also argue for a collective share of TV revenue for all league clubs to lessen the gulf between big and little clubs which the borderline teams fear so much and spend so much to avoid, but that would only take us back to the early 90s, when the Premier League emerged.
(And when we got to the Semi-Finals of the World Cup)
June 29th, 2010 - 13:39
Hear hear.
I also think revenue needs to be ploughed into training top quality coaches. Check out this terrifying stat from an article by the Guardian’s Owen Gibson:
“Prior to this tournament, there were only 2,769 English coaches holding Uefa’s top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588.”
Here’s the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/27/england-football-world-cup-fa
June 28th, 2010 - 23:12
Nailed it. Exactly what I have been saying to peeps about the English team (And the French, Italians et al.!) Also, I’m Irish, so when I move to England soon, out of desperation, I’ll be one of those terrible dirty -skilled- foreigners. Can’t wait.
June 29th, 2010 - 02:39
“It’s not xenophobic to say that foreign players are stopping English players from getting a chance in the Premier League.”
I thought it was the lack of serious development system that was stopping English players from getting a chance in the Premier League. The level of youth competitions is nothing compared to, for example, the USA’s NCAA programs, especially for Basketball and [American] Football. Now then, they do have something of a monopoly on those sports in general, but it still represents a high-profile youth league/development system that Britain lacks for Football or, well, anything.
June 29th, 2010 - 08:13
Yeah the Capello witch hunt is crazy and it ignores the fundamental truth about English football – it’s crap.
The Sun is hysterically going after Capello’s head (that newspaper has had a bad year hasn’t it? Everything it’s touched has turned to mould!) and ignoring the deep, deep flaws within the national game and league set up which got us to this point (and which it has a vested interest in defending).
One of the funniest things about the few days between the Slovenia win and the Germany debacle was the constant “England are the better team than Germany on paper” shite emanating from the Sun / Talksport / ITV talking heads. When overpaid pundits and fans alike resort to saying that, you can smell the desperation.
It’s interesting to juxtapose England’s glorious failure against this week’s macho bullshit announcement from the government about competitive school sports (a tedious rightwing fantasy). English football doesn’t lag behind other countries because of the lack of competitive school sport. It lags because kids here are pushed by screaming mothers and fathers into such competitive competitions without learning and mastering the fundamental skills of the game!
The question English football needs to answer is this: How can little Johnny match little Raul for touch, vision and skill when he’s being screamed at from the sidelines to hoof the ball into the box as soon as he gets it into his feet?
June 29th, 2010 - 09:24
Seeing World+Dog spouting the “We’re on our way now, we’re the bestest t4eam in the tournament, we’re gonna win the whole thing” after a scrappy 1-0 win over a barely-rated country with a population only twice that of Birmingham was one of the most spectacular pieces of self-delusion of the century.
C’mon Ghana!
June 29th, 2010 - 09:21
there are plenty of promising young english footballers coming up, even at arsenal, a club hardly known for english players but it seems the problem is by the time these youngsters get to the world cup they’ll all be egotistical and not bothered, should send a young team next time, before they have a chance to develop such big egos, seems to be working for the germans
June 29th, 2010 - 10:39
Good article and comments. Will the bozos at the Scum resign for calling it wrong again and again… E-A-S-Y?!!
Funny too how these papers are usually owned by… immigrants or tax-exiles.
June 29th, 2010 - 15:54
“If English players were better and more skilful, for example, they’d push the imports out on merit. Is it a question of the immigrants undercutting wages, as is the accusation with other trades? Probably not. I’m not even going to blame the Murdoch millions for ruining football. I can’t stand the man as much as anyone else, but that’s not the cause.”
I’d disagree with some of this.
A few years ago Liverpool had a youth team that won the FA youth cup twice on the bounce, then (with a few foreigners thrown in) went on to win the northern reserve league and ultimately the national championship, there wasn’t anything else they could have done. I suspect between them, those players appearances in the first team number less than ten, particularly the English ones, most of whom now play in lower divisions, I think one went to newcastle.
Why did they never get a chance in the first team? Because there was always too much at stake, too much money, basically.
As much as I can’t stand football, what you need is.
1. More UEFA qualified coaches working IN schools (foreign ones ideally, who are more interested in if you can actually pass the ball than if you can barge smaller kids out the way or run like a bastard, after this culture develops amongst English coaches…..) some kid’s fat dad after school on a Tuesday isn’t good enough, this simultaneously stops PE teachers picking teams on a socio-economic basis (I’m sure some of us went to schools where the teams for football, rugby and cricket were all the same kids).
2. Abolish club academies so they’re prevented from sucking up and spitting out talent when they turn out not to be the next Gerrard or Baresi and establish a US style system with regional academies taking the place of colleges, distribute said players to the top league when they turn, lets say, 19, via a draft. Undrafted players can be sold to lower leagues, this would also stop lower teams demanding eight figures for a 16 year old who’s never kicked a ball in front of more than ten people and a dog.
3. In lieu of the above, adopt a Spanish system wherein it becomes easier for English youth players can be poached by foreign clubs, if some of those Liverpool players had gotten experience at say, Barcelona B, who knows where they’d be now.
June 29th, 2010 - 19:58
Don’t really understand where this really comes from – whilst I agree that there is a “whiff of entitlement” from the England players – and I think that was evident from what we saw in SA, they earnt the right to be there from their cruise of a qualification campaign. If they thought that the WC would be as easy as qualification – then clearly they’re idiots, but I don’t think that this was it. I think that they thought that their individual talent would be enough to beat the likes of Spain and Brazil – and they just couldn’t have been more wrong about that. They did deserve to reach the finals – they did earn that much from results, and ultimately that’s all that actually counts.
I don’t actually agree that the mood is to blame the manager. There is some talk about it, and clearly he did make strategic mistakes. I don’t understand how he couldn’t see that our best players need to play in the best positions – and the Stevie G conundrum will continue to confuse us all for years to come. However, I defo feel that the majority of people are disgusted with the effort, passion and drive that wasn’t shown by the players – that’s who I blame (with the exception of Stevie G and David James – who both accounted themselves fairly well) – everyone really deserves the vilification that will no doubt come. Rooney, most of all.
The view that the foreign talent crushes the ability for young English footballers coming through is just bollocks. We’re lucky and we should embrace having a league that carries that much talent in it. It forces players (particularly from England) to raise them game just to break into the league – be it an Owen, be it a Rooney or be it a Terry – what’s good to see is that when they do break through, like Owen, like Rooney, like Terry, like Gerrard – look at them now – massive reputations and feared throughout the world as amongst the best in the world in their positions – this is a good thing. If we can build a team with big players, that have clearly got the ability AND the experience of playing the biggest non-WC stage – the Champions League, and the experience of winning it, whether it’s Liverpool, Man U OR Chelsea – we’ve got to be most of the way there. Surely? Big match players that deliver and win. Big international tournament wins that have been brought back to English clubs over and over again – you can’t argue that on their day – our biggest, big name, big experience, used to winning big tournaments and not buckling under the pressure key players: Terry, Carragher, Cole, Ferdinand, Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney all on the same stage as Messi, Ronaldo, Tevez, Fabiano, Torres, Villa, Alonso and the others… Indeed – we used to see half of them playing week in, week out in the fecking Premier League! They are no real surprises there. We know who they are, what they can do and we know that they can be beaten, tackled and scored against. However, the point is that because young players need to work that much harder, and be that much better to break into their clubs first teams is great – when they do break in, they’re likely to be pretty good, and hopefully help to keep up a momentum as our “golden generation” begins to fade away with age…. We need to keep the standard high, indeed even higher, otherwise they’ll have no chance against the big International guns – be it for club or country.
The real problem? The club –v- country debate will rage on, but it’s clear to me that few really value playing for England. Not like they used to anyway – no pay cheque, seems to equal no real effort. And, belief: whilst they were the most over-hyped team in the tournament, this was with good reason – covered above. However, I think that they mostly buckled under the pressure of expectation – I don’t think for a minute that anyone of them (even Barry and Green), ever stepped on the field of play to not want to win – I just don’t think that any of them really believed their own hype, or that any of them really believed that they could really deliver on the nation’s hopes. Once you’ve got that in your head, you’re always going to be in trouble – and we were. All the way through the tournament.
I hope that Capello doesn’t go. I think the England team needs to buckle down under some discipline and learn how to deliver a team performance. We could do with having the team run like the Germans, as we’re not going to ever play ole football a la Brazil or Agentina – fast, very high tempo pressing performances are the way that we’re going to break down teams and break opposing spirits. I’d love it if we could raise the technical ability to play ole football – but can anyone see this happening anytime soon? We’ve always known what to do to win a game, and get decent results – we just didn’t do it, and that’s unforgiveable – it’s not rocket science.
Love the Sun acronym though – missed that when it was in print… EASY – that’s defo one of their better ones.
June 30th, 2010 - 18:22
They had an even better one yesterday when the team came home – something along the lines of “Sunny outlook except for cloud over Heathrow as shower blows in from South Africa”.
July 1st, 2010 - 16:33
“massive reputations”
I think this is the key to it.
Are those reputations really deserved? Or are they based on hype?
Bullying the likes of Wigan or Wolves every Saturday is not the same thing as competing against Argentina, Brazil, Spain or Germany.
England got outplayed between both penalty boxes by Algeria.
Algeria!
The writing was on the wall then. But with the massive hype surrounding English football, everyone got carried away yet again after an unconvincing win against Slovenia.
The delusion must end.