Sepp's Blather

Don Capello certainly made his impression on me the other night after the four hundred and sixty-eighth cut-away to his iron gob on the eve of his first day on the six-million pound a year job, in more ways than one. Certainly it was joy to remark that there is more surging, youthful England talent in Villa’s first team than in the whole of London at the moment, and Capello’s tacit acknowledgement of this fact by travelling all the way to horrible Brum for an FA Cup tie is very welcome indeed.

Yet behind all the good cheer there was the nagging sensation of a squawking, irate, fat little man with a name that brings to mind the need to take a piss. Sepp Blatter remarked with his trademark timing that Capello’s appointment broke the ‘sacrosanct law’ that big national teams with big histories should bloody-well appointment a big (in the English case, big means in girth only) domestic manager. English players, English manager, English national team. On the surface, sure, in the highly unlikely event of an English trophy I don’t want to have to deal with sour grapes Italians rubbing the manager’s national identity in my face any more than the next guy. Yet can’t we look to the enormous positive of an extraordinarily talented foreign coach teaching the game to a nation which, while duly credited for bringing football to the world, has been left behind by its vastly superiorly-talented children?

The Premiership is proof positive that, over one hundred years after England’s white Christian elites came up with the Game to prevent boys from ransacking villages, England is still at the forefront of world football. While FIFA and UEFA cry out for domestic players for domestic clubs, for domestic managers for national teams, for nations to remain nations in an increasingly mashed-up, decreasingly nationalistic world, England is proving a beacon having created a pulsating domestic league featuring the national talents of tens if not hundreds of countries from around the world. It’s perhaps the second-best football league on the planet. More on this tomorrow.