Fab

I must admit, I didn't see it coming. I had thought that Fabio Capello would simply go through the motions for the remainder of his contract, see the team through a lacklustre Euros competition, and walk away rich, and on to some other high-profile job. I could just about see the FA sacking him, as he was pretty clearly just marking the time, but I really didn't see him resigning.

Perhaps there was some deal struck behind closed doors?

Anyway, this is probably good news for England. They can now either appoint Harry Redknapp (it must be him, surely?) as their new coach, or appoint an interim manager until Harry is freed up to take the job on full time. Either way, they can then spend the next several months talking about a 'crisis', a 'short term solution', or whatever else they need to do to lower expectations at the Euros. (Which should reduce pressure on the players, and might therefore enable them to actually play to their capabilities.)

Then, if they do well at the Euros, they can hail the genius of their new manager, or players "playing out of their skins", or whatever. If they do poorly, they can blame it all on the previous regime, comment on the less-than-ideal timing, and talk about "building for the future". It's a no-lose situation.

Basically, this is a good thing for England, and can only help them going forward. Plus, given the result of Redknapp's trial yesterday, the timing really couldn't be much better.

Shame about Capello, though. You would have thought he should have been able to do better. But he just seemed to lose all interest in the job after the World Cup. Which is a shame - the performance at the World Cup was really surprising in how badly it compared with qualifying, and despite that England only lost to a Germany side who were one of the outstanding sides in the tournament. I would have thought he should have had the wherewithal to correct the mistakes and go forward.

Incidentally, I happen to agree with Capello over the Terry thing. If he was to be stripped of the captaincy, surely that was a matter for the manager to decide? After all, the captain is supposed to be the leader on the field, which makes it a footballing matter. Plus, I'm not at all convinced there's actually a better alternative out there. That is, after all, why he was (wrongly) given the captaincy back in the first place.