Life in Football Manager

Fabio is about to name his first England side at the weekend and I am sure that it will be full of surprises, rumours have it that there will be no place Beckham to earn his 100th cap and we might see some of the young guys get a chance like Bently and Young. Capello has been known for his hard line attitude with the players, picking sides that want to play and will perform becoming something of a tactician. But will these skills put him in good stead when taking over at Alexandra Road.

Capello has been successful at nearly every club he has been too, granted he has never worked at any club other then the top flight where he has had money to spend or talented squad already. But nevertheless he has shown that he can win cups and leagues, many people have taken up the Don Fabio challenge to charter his career through Football Manager 2008. Capello started off as a successful player grabbing 40 caps for his country and winning titles with Roma in the late 60’s.

His managerial career started off at AC Milan winning the title four out of five tries going 58 league games unbeaten at one stage. A move to Spain for a season in 1997 at Los Merengues saw Capello lift another trophy nipping Barcelona to the post by two points and bringing in players that are now have legendary status such as Roberto Carlos and Clarence Seedorf. A second spell at Milan wasn’t so successful not even lasting the season, Milan only finishing 10th that year ending the poor season. A short break out of football to get his thoughts together before Capello moved to the Italian capital Rome. Fabio didn’t make any fans at Roma despite winning the title in his first season, the Roman fans to this day have a hatred for him feeling that he had a hand in sabotaging the club by selling many of their key players. A feud with the Roma golden child Totti did not help things and after Roma nearly found themselves relegated and debt ridden, Cappello went to Juventus. Capello did win titles in Turin, but after the match fixing scandal Juventus were stripped of their trophies and sent down to Serie B. Capello jumped ship and took a few players with him back to Real Madrid were he ended a long spell without a trophy when he had a fantastic second half of the season to take La Liga. Although he had success it wasn’t without controversy, first of all dropping Beckham, Ronaldo and Cassanno to the disgust of the Madrid fans and was forced to recall Beckham who then had a major part in the title win. Capello was sacked by Madrid for his defensive way of playing football, Fabio believing that the beautiful attacking game is dead and only winning will do, no matter how it is done.

So Capello’s career has been far away the depths of League One so can he put into practise what he has learnt at the top level to The Railwaymen? The media predicted that Crewe should be capable of finishing 12th, but Fabio was only able to finish one place under that prediction in 13th. Looking at the statistics from the season Crewe lacked goals, not a single player in the team was able to score mpre then 10 goals. Capello used his already established affiliation link with Liverpool to loan strikers Lindfield and Moroccan international El Zhar both had decent seasons the latter finishing as top goalscorer with 9. Andy Carroll the huge young striker looked the best player he brought in, but Andy only stayed a few months playing 5 games and scoring 3 in that time. Fabio did spend well though Millwall’s Senda and Chad Harpur the South African keeper both looked and played well. Senda probably being the best Crewe player of the season. Maynard may have had a better role to play in the first season and pushed Crewe up the table, if only he wasn’t on the injury table for a total of 6 months. Most interestingly was the way that Crewe lined up in a very counter attacking fashion, something unheard of in the depths of the English leagues. 4-2-3-1 with nobody in the middle of the field, he surely was placing his Italians ways onto the team. Highlights of the season though was a semi final finish in the Johnstone’s Trophy, before Rotherham stopped them in their tracks in a shock win. Crewe enjoyed 72% of the possession in that game but was only able to convert that into 7 shots and only 1 goal. Rotherham using the rest of the possession much better and winning 2-1. Wins against Leeds and Carlise though showed that their is some potential in the side.

But unfortunately Capello didn’t last long after that leaving just before Christmas making him the first manager from my shortlist to change post. While still at the club though he still invested into the team bringing in Werling from Barnsley, former Bolton striker Pedersen and another goalkeeper Jalal to replace the departure of Ben Williams all three players arrived for £40k each. The big buy of the summer was Bolton youngster Gbemie, obviously Capello still has the big club mentality as Gbemie came in and then went straight out on loan to Kidsgrove and £95k was spent on the player. But a much, much better performance from Crewe this season finishing 3rd in the title race only a point behind the 2nd place and 2 points behind winners Orient. Signings Pedersen and Lindfield in his second spell at the club gaining 38 goals between them the 33 year old scoring 20 goals making his 40k price tag well worth the investment. Capello’s record before he left was 11 wins, 4 draws and 9 loses not too bad. and bearing in mind the final standing of the season was 20 wins, 14 draws and 12 loses he played a huge part in getting them into the position they are. Although Crewe finished top of the play off places it was Southend who went into the Championship Nicky Maynard’s equaliser forced the game to extra time where Gary Hooper took his second goal to send them up. Bizarrely after such a great season for Pedersen in which he was runner-up in the best signing of the season, he didn’t see any action until the 114th minute by which time it was too late.

Capello was poached by Premiership strugglers Bolton and only lasted till March before he was given the boot, unable to save Bolton from the drop. Although Capello’s appointment did seem to have an affect on Bolton’s results although it wasn’t enough though and Bolton finished a point shy of safety. After his disappointing attempt in the English top flight Capello moved back to similar surroundings, trying his luck at Empoli were he first managed to lead them to a 8th in his first season but the next Empoli were relegated to Serie B that forced hos retirement as The Don thought he was getting too old for it all and not the success he used to be.

After such a good season before Capello left Crewe, they were relegated under Capello’s successor John Ward and for Crewe it wasn’t until Alex Ferguson’s son Darren took over that they managed to get themselves back into League 1 two years later, it was under Darren Ferguson they dominated League 2 and became champions. Before going back down a after another successful season in League 1 and having a yo yo affect over the remaining season played.

So this adds something to the theory that it is actually the manager that makes the team, without Capello and his strange Italian tactics I fail to see that Crewe would have managed their 3rd place finish, as with more or less the same side they were relegated the next season Leon Knight supplying more or less the same amount of goals that Pedersen did. It is just a pity that he couldn’t prove that rule elsewhere managing relegation twice himself. During his brief spell at Bolton though I think it was just too late for him to make any sort of difference and the impatient board didn’t allow him the time to develop his own team.