Fabio Capello does seem to be taking this England thing very seriously.
Extended squads of 30, intense deliberations with his technical staff over
the fitness of David Beckham, an internal dialogue on the subject of the
captaincy - bless his little Gorizian heart, he actually thinks he has a
chance of winning something. That won't last.
No doubt Capello has been so focused on his first match, against Switzerland a
week today, that forward planning for his second game, in France on March
26, has rather passed him by. Which is a pity because if he knew what
English football had in store, he could have saved a lot of heartache and
learnt to pick up the money and coast, as Sven-Göran Eriksson eventually
did.
England play in Paris on a Wednesday, so what matches has the Premier League
scheduled for the preceding Sunday? Manchester United versus Liverpool at
1.30pm, followed by Chelsea against Arsenal at 4pm. Welcome to England,
Fabio. Welcome to a sporting culture so dysfunctional that it actively works
against you. You'll learn. Give it a year.
It is not a language barrier that you have to overcome here, but an
intellectual one. We're stupid, you see. Stupid people playing stupid games,
which is why we end up paying stupid money for a guy such as you to save us.
But you have to do it while pushing a piano upstairs, didn't we tell you
that? And with a brick dropping on your head every two minutes. That's just
our way, you see. That is what we're like. We're the Laurel
and Hardy of the international scene.
The Premier League cannot hide behind the skirts of the television companies
on this one. The fact is, no broadcasting business would pay £1.7billion
over three years just to put on Bolton Wanderers versus Wigan Athletic at
prime time. Sky Sports and Setanta demand big set-piece attractions at
regular intervals through the season.
Understandably, the League does its best to oblige. So the moment Liverpool's
visit to Old Trafford and Arsenal's to Stamford Bridge were scheduled for
Saturday, March 22, it was plain that the matches were designed to be remade
as what is known as Grand Slam Sunday. Yet at that time England's intention
to play on March 26 was well-documented - and could have been confirmed with
one phone call - even if the identity of the opponents was not officially
revealed until December 4, 2007.
From the start, the Premier League would have appreciated that delaying
matches involving the leading four teams could cause huge difficulty for the
England manager. Indeed, at the time the fixture list was published, England
were hoping to qualify for Euro 2008, in which case the March international
would have been one of only four fixtures to fine-tune the team for the
tournament. And still the Premier League pressed on with its plan.
No use blaming computers, either. The days when we believed that the schedule
was spewed out at random are long gone. On August 19, Manchester City played
Manchester United and Chelsea played Liverpool, both matches moved to Sunday
for television, as the return matches have been on February 10. The games on
March 23 are, in effect, the return legs of fixtures played on December 16,
also a Sunday, live on Sky. Nobody even pretends these days. These showpiece
Sunday double-headers are football's equivalent of arranged marriages and to
place one in such proximity to an England match shows almost wanton
disregard for the fortunes of the national team. The administrative geniuses
of English football had better hope that Capello's grasp of our language
remains limited, although his thoughts on this episode could no doubt he
expressed in simple terms.
The simpler the better for Sir Dave Richards, the chairman of the Premier
League and a senior administrator at the FA. Richards is a member of the FA
board, vice-chairman of the international committee and sits on FA
committees governing technical control and the FA Cup. Indeed, if more than
two people gather anywhere in a room in England and wish to talk about
football, there is probably an FA article stating that Richards must be
present and has the right to veto all decisions.
Now, with a foot in both camps, it would appear that Richards is in the
perfect position to mediate, to see the dilemma presented by a crowded
fixture list and to steer a middle course ensuring that neither the clubs
nor the England team are short-changed. It is logical that the Premier
League keeps its television paymasters happy, but not at the expense of the
national team. This does not appear to be happening.
England are to be shafted in March, just as they were in August before the
match against Germany at Wembley that England lost. Once in a season would
be unfortunate, but twice really is, as we English would say, Fabio, taking
the p***.
Of course, everyone would wish the fixture list to be rearranged to suit its
purposes, not least the powerful elite club lobby. José Mourinho, during his
time in England, complained that Chelsea were often given difficult domestic
matches before Champions League games; when in Portugal, a leading club such
as FC Porto were given an easy ride, or a free weekend, to help them. He
failed to understand that to aid Porto as shamelessly as this unfairly
disadvantaged a rival club and the Premier League exists to do more than
preserve a stranglehold of the richest on Champions League survival.
Compromising to assist England is not the same. The Premier League and FA are
not in the business of making life easier for Raymond Domenech, of France,
or Joachim Löw, the Germany coach. From Capello's perspective, it will seem
ludicrous that no consideration is given to the needs of the flagship
concern for English football; indeed, that matters are arranged to make life
harder for him. It is almost as if the Premier League is actively working to
undermine the national team and, through it, the FA. But that could not be,
for if it were true, surely there would be a movement to kick Richards off
every committee in Soho Square and make him as welcome in the building as
head lice.
When England were due to play in Israel on March 24 last year, the FA
helpfully scheduled two FA Cup replays for the preceding Monday, offering
the explanation that there was no alternative (although as one of the
matches that necessitated this arrangement was a charity friendly between
Manchester United and Juventus, this excuse had a hollow ring). Even so, the
same mitigation cannot be advanced on this occasion.
Because part of the fixture list is manufactured, there is no reason why these
matches involving the elite quartet of Barclays Premier League clubs cannot
be specifically arranged for weekends that do not clash with England
fixtures, FA Cup games or Champions League commitments. Do such dates exist?
Absolutely. And here they are: January 13 or 20, February 10 or 24, March
16, April 13 or May 4 or 11.
Viewed like this, the inbuilt inadequacies of English football become plain.
This is an industry with wealth measured in billions run by men who cannot
organise a diary. No wonder Eriksson had lost interest in everything beyond
the typing pool by the end and Steve McClaren's campaign was holed below the
water line. Whatever mistakes the last man made were compounded by a process
that often left his team shorn of their best players at crucial times. These
problems will arise naturally enough, without football's executives adding
to them.
Capello, McClaren's successor, is trying to heal a team fractured by failure,
yet in his second match he will not know until the Sunday night whether he
can call on the services of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard, Frank
Lampard, Owen Hargreaves, Joe Cole, Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney for a
difficult away match against a France team who will want to win, as all the
leading nations do against England.
We have grown too attached to the concept of the meaningless England friendly,
too blasé about the importance of these matches to a manager. Eriksson
foolishly devalued the currency, but Capello's serious treatment of the
Beckham issue indicates that he is aware of the importance of all matches
and training sessions to a coach whose time with the players is already
limited. Now, before the match against France, his key players will need to
rest on Monday and have one light training session on the day before the
game. There will be no opportunity for fitness assessments or detailed
tactical preparation. But will England be expected to turn in a good
performance? Of course, they always are.
Capello must take the hand he has been dealt this season, but not beyond. A
priority should be a quiet but very firm word with Richards and others who
will bask in the reflected glory of any England success, as if they have
been anything but a ball and chain fastened around the ankle of successive
England managers. Put simply: no more. Start considering the England team
and treating them with fairness or lose them. We can see how much fun a
tournament is without them - the head of sport at ITV is so looking forward
to the summer that he has cancelled it.
One imagines Capello, sitting at his desk with that same, long-suffering look
to camera that Oliver Hardy used to have as the piano teetered on the lip of
the top stair. “Well, why don't you do something to help me?” he would ask
Stan Laurel, his partner. And there goes English football, cascading down
the steps to oblivion: dum-de-dum, dum-de-dum, didd-er-ly dum, didd-er-ly
dum...
