The importance of these two positions though is probably overstated. Fabio Capello was paid more than the four managers who reached the semi finals of the last World Cup combined per year. He earned 25 times as much as Bob Bradley, who guided the US to finish above England in their World Cup group.
And he earned far more than Oscar Washington Tabarez, who has won the Copa America for Uruguay and go them to the semi final of the World Cup.
International football, unlike club, is not based on a league format. It is mostly cup competitions. The league format is for the qualifiers for World Cups and European Championships. England are fifth in the world in the FIFA rankings, largely based on their brilliant qualifying form over recent years for major competitions. The truth is that England are very good at the league style football of the qualifying campaign. But a cup is fundamentally different – and that is the point. Cups, brief ones like World Cups, are more down to luck, form and momentum than a league campaign.
Greece and Denmark won the European Championships after all. Are these teams better than any of the England sides which went to that tournament between and since their respective triumphs? No. The point is that it is not down to having the best players, the best manager or even the best captain. Football is more nuanced than that. And with the captain, this is where hype takes over too much. Who the captain is, wearing an insignificant symbol of national pride and ego, is an annoying irrelevance. It would be good to see someone as understated and without ego, like Parker, keep the armband, but it should be given to the player who has the most caps, simply. And Terry should be kicked out of the national side for the sake of harmony. Politics needs to be taken away from it. And just because he may not have the armband, will that make Steven Gerrard less influential? No, it is what he does with his feet that may do that.
England have been run like a club side for too long; as though bringing in a good club manager will solve everything. It won’t. Redknapp won’t. Capello didn’t, and he was one of the best available. But Capello had never coached a team at a high pressured, four week international tournament, and that showed in South Africa in 2010.
Pearce spoke a lot of sense after the Holland game. He spoke of all the small things about tournament football, international football that Harry Redknapp knows absolutely nothing about. Redknapp may be a better manager than Pearce, but in terms of understanding what international football is about, few would be in doubt who has the upper hand between the pair. Particularly after Pearce’s wise words. This was a man who was not getting carried away – who knew that international football was down to more luck than judgment. That fostering a good mentality, and the small things, were so important. He knows that he doesn’t have all the answers; but he knows the right way to do things to give a team the best chance; he experienced it with Bobby Robson, and playing under Graham Taylor and Terry Venables gave him the experience of playing under other managers and seeing other styles that work and don’t work. The man who has been involved in England’s two most successful international tournaments since 1966, is probably the man for England.
He protests that it isn’t the job for him, that he’s not ready. But he has misunderstood one thing. That the identity of the manager is not the biggest issue. England’s play against Holland, though only one match, showed Pearce understood key things about international football. That the team must be streetwise and intelligent, not just running around like headless chickens. England played passing, patient football. At one point they played about 20 passes at the back without going anywhere. Though it was a concern that England didn’t make forward progress, it showed that they were being ordered to be patient, keep the ball on the floor and not run around like idiots. Pearce knows that you can’t play gung ho, typical English football all match in a tournament. And with the patience he instilled, two of the best goals England have scored in any match in recent years were netted. It was largely irrelevant that England lost. The identity of the captain and manager is overrated. Pearce isn’t the best manager available. But he is the best manager for this job, and he was wise enough to select the best captain, too.
