Preview: In the wake of the World Cup qualifier win against Croatia on Wednesday which confirmed England's spot in the tournament next year in South Africa, for the second time on yours truly’s blog she will be re-tracing once again on the paths the man currently occupying the England hot seat has taken before he got the job he had always wanted after club management. As part of the continuing series on footballing moments in the unofficial weekend football focus series, this time yours truly went down memory lane for the second time since June and what it has taught her on the events before, during and after 17 December 2007. (Hint: The answer’s already in the entry)
One of the popular topics on Twitter almost two weeks ago was for some reason is the 90s. That decade for me constituted my entire childhood, me not ashamed to say I like the Spice Girls. But that decade also had a rather special match which happened in Athens. That was in 1994, the Champions League final.
I had just become a sister for the second and final time then. There was three months left before I turned seven in that year. My younger sister came into this world at those circumstances. The day after she was born, AC Milan beat favourites Barcelona 4-0 in Athens in the Champions League final. It was all the more amazing of the situation coming into the match for both sides. Barcelona was the ‘Dream Team’ then while AC Milan had all sorts of personnel problems heading into the Greek capital. The press had since called that match as one of the best in European nights, especially with how AC Milan humiliated their Spanish counterparts. May I dare say that could have really ‘launched’ then-AC Milan coach Fabio Capello into the real wider world of football management?
Ironically enough whenever I think back about how Fabio Capello’s road to the England job came about, for me in a way...it somehow began with the infamous calciopoli. Strange but true, considering I have to actually read up on the 1994 Champions League final. The incident which shook Italian football became really the first time I first knew about him and his name because he was the last Juventus coach when the infamous calciopoli took place. Later it was reported in the sports news bulletins that despite investigations which found that he was not implicated in the calciopoli scandal, he went to Real Madrid and it was a second stint since the last time he was there was a decade ago.
Maybe as a Manchester United supporter and remembering how David Beckham eventually ended up at Real Madrid, the 2006/07 footballing season became one I never forgot...or at least outside of English football. Also as an England supporter, I wondered how Beckham will do in Spain after he stood down from the England captaincy after the World Cup. How he took the news that he would not be selected for England matches, which even led to his club coach famously declaring he would never picked him for the squad again. My father always like to talk about how Capello reacted when Beckham said that he would be playing in the United States after the end of the season in Spain but I always replied back that it goes to show that the Italian is also human as well. Capello human enough to admit his mistakes given Beckham’s readmission eventually worked.
I would always remember from images, footages of how Real Madrid celebrated their domestic title in that same 2006/07 season. I will never ever forget one where Fabio Capello had been drenched in water after the league title was confirmed! It always wanted to make me laugh. But soon after, that was forgotten as England’s eventual Euro 2008 no-show was confirmed when Croatia arrived at the Wembley. How I still remembered the day after and the weeks that followed. If what was once written on The Times website is true, on the day which was probably the worst for me as an England supporter so far, somewhere in Italy, someone’s lifelong dream of managing the England squad has come true. It was then I realised it was actually the same person who was David Beckham’s coach at Real Madrid and eventually got the boot for apparently playing dour football, was actually doing media work back home in Italy. On the same night England never qualified for Euro 2008.
In the immediate aftermath of England’s no-show at Euro 2008, Steve McClaren got the boot as expected. On the same day when I was watching ESPN Sportscenter Asia, the man who would become McClaren’s successor talked about how he would like the job and that it is a ‘challenge’ to him. In my cynical frame of mind then, I thought that bad news does travel fast. Further readings would tell me that Fabio Capello first uttered those famous words when he learned that England could possibly be not qualifying for the tournament after his colleague told him what happened at the Wembley and that McClaren could be sacked as a result. The future England coach was co-commentating Italy’s last and meaningless qualifier against the Faroe Islands (by then, the Azzuri had already qualified for Euro 2008) when the news came in from London. Before we know it, the search for the new England coach began with nationality not an issue.
For me at that time, I was preparing for my family’s trip to China. It was already planned way beforehand. But as the date for the trip grew closer, there was no answer as to who will be the new man in charge of the ‘impossible job’. As much as I was looking forward of being in the country where my grandparents came from given it will be part sight-seeing and part-rediscovering my own roots, I was at the computer each day searching for news on who could be the new England coach. Eventually the speed gathered pace and the identity was known. And when I realised who could it be, I was half-surprised, half-not surprised, half-amazed. The man who talked about wanting the England job got it in the end eventually. Whether there was some sort of a five-man shortlist which even included Fabio Capello which was claimed in the papers at that time, I had no idea myself. But the fact that the English FA went foreign for the second time since the days of Sven-Goran Eriksson says a lot about the state of coaching in the motherland of football then.
Why would someone who had admired English football from a distance for a long time get the job, instead of any of the home grown English managers who could be capable of handling it? Really awkward questions indeed. But in the weekend before Capello first met the demanding English press, the whole story began fell into place like pieces of jigsaw puzzle being put together. I was amazed that he had been approached twice by the English FA before but both came to nothing. Those two approaches had made him wondered would he ever get the job. I then read the various anecdotes during his coaching stations at AC Milan, Real Madrid, AS Roma and later Juventus. During those readings, I was being taught that he does take friendly matches seriously as well, even club idols are not spared, once famously declared that he would never go to Juventus when he was still in charge at AS Roma. Fan opinions at the various coaching stations do differ at where he is actually too. I would always remember reading that he was seen as some sort of a traitor by the fans at AS Roma when he left the club for Juventus after what he famously declared. Now whenever I think back what he once famously said when he was still at AS Roma, I just laughed. But to be serious, I later read that Capello’s decision at that time surprised everyone. Even those who know him well.
Not only that, something else made me excited when I did my readings. I was amazed at his interests outside of football. For someone who’s first-ever hobby was drawing, I went excited when I read about his interest in art. I was like, ‘Finally!’. Drawing was my first love, and to read that the new England coach do like art...I was just amazed.
On the seriousness of it after I did my readings before and after Capello was officially presented to the press on December 2007, I started to ask questions to myself. The most important question of all: If he can’t do it, then who can? The once proud motherland of football looked like it might never get up once again, and will he be able to handle what is in front of him? He had embraced the job with enthusiasm, but will the sceptical English press and public accept it too? They will praise him if he does well, criticise him to no end if it is not. For me, I wanted a reason to believe again as an England supporter. Not since the 2002 World Cup when it all began for me had I ever felt depressed as a football fan.
In almost typical Italian fashion like how the Italian national team does at major tournaments, England began slowly under him. Before it was the World Cup qualifiers which would test just how he is at handling such situations. Then all those talk that England could be a contender at the next World Cup started to come about from various corners in football. And the answer for that will always go back to Fabio Capello and the work he is doing.
I remembered the various pre and post-match interviews he does, the interviews he does outside of the international matches...it made me realised it was like how I eventually felt after the events of last November in Berlin. That wily Italian had convinced me with his work, without even me knowing. Whenever his future is speculated, I always get jumpy. And for some reason as a result, Gareth Gates’s ‘Say It Isn’t So’ would just pop into my head. I already knew he had finally won over me since last November and to imagine he might even left the post earlier than stated in his contract always makes me shudder. Not many managers, coaches (whichever you like) leave such an impression on me that any talk of early departures will always make me want to go saying ‘Please don’t leave’. So ahead of the Slovenia friendly last week when he said that he will see out his contract, it was music to my ears.
I remembered I once typed on my blog after the Italian’s first meeting with the press on December 2007, I said that whenever I looked back, I want to say that I witnessed something major and I was there when it happened. It’s amazing how it was all like for me in November 2007. But at the end of the day thinking back how I first came to know the man who would be dominating the TV screens before, during and after each England matches starting with the infamous calciopoli of 2006...I concluded that nothing surprises me in football, anymore. Each time since then I thought I was being caught off-guard when it comes to the world of football, I always reminded myself what happened on 17 December 2007, the day Fabio Capello first met the press. I know, three days later...I was off to China with my family for a week.
Well, just don’t talk about that goal on November 1973 at the Wembley, because it was the man who is currently the England coach who actually helped to secure his native Italy’s first win on English soil. Fabio Capello had already created history as a player and indirectly caused the sacking of Sir Alf Ramsey (ironically enough the man he had been often compared to, apart from Brian Clough) before finally landing the job he had always wanted later as a manager more than three decades later. He had said before that goal was his biggest achievement in his career. Yes, for someone who had achieved a lot as a player and more importantly later as a manager, it was scoring against the motherland of football being his personal highlight.
You have someone who loves English football more than it does to him and he is not even English in the first place. Come to think of it, it has actually coming one full circle for Fabio Capello. Just take the club where he first made his name in football management for example - AC Milan. It was originally founded by a group of English expatriates based in Milan where it actually first started out as a cricket club. But then, what I once typed almost three months ago is still relevant now, and I will use that to end this entry.
To be honest, and I am not someone who openly expressed her feelings in the open...it was already in the aftermath of the friendly away in Germany last November which England won, I realised Fabio Capello had finally won over me. The fact that he can overcome those whole slew of injuries which hit his side before the match before eventually winning against not really a full strength German side finally convinced me. It was further enhanced when on the day England was due to play Ukraine at the Wembley for the World Cup qualifiers which also falls on April Fools' Day, I almost went alarmed when reading about the 'news' that he had resigned and Kevin Keegan is taking over. It was then I realised, without knowingly...that was a sign of how much the Italian had meant to me when it comes to me believing in my first footballing love all over again. His enthusiasm for the English game is so infectious, the aura he commands in view of his past achievements in his native Italy and Spain...I don't know how to put it. One can just simply feel it.
