Saturday's match didn't go according to plan for England boss Fabio Capello.
When I was a kid, I was in complete awe of Michael Jordan. I wasn’t a Bulls fan. I wasn’t even that much of a basketball fan. But when he was playing, my eyes were glued to the TV. For those of you who were lucky enough to see His Airness at the peak of his powers, you’ll understand the mystique. It was like he was invincible. Even when his team was in trouble, even when he wasn’t quite hitting top gear, no matter what, I always thought, “Mike’s in control. Mike will figure it out.”
That’s sort of the way I felt with Fabio Capello at the helm for England over the last two years. Sure, there were times during World Cup qualification when I would raise an eyebrow at one of his lineups or wonder about a curveball substitution. But I never doubted him. I never got really nervous about his decisions. I never thought, “Well that move is going to backfire bigtime.” It was always, “Fabio’s in control. Fabio will figure it out.” His results meant that there was no reason to think otherwise.
Well, that all changed on Saturday. That afternoon, a couple hours before England’s World Cup opener against the US, I read the teamsheet: Green; Cole, Terry, King, Johnson; Lennon, Gerrard, Lampard, Milner; Heskey, Rooney. And for the first time during his tenure as boss I thought, “Wow, I really don’t think Capello has this one right.”
Why? Because he went against his own game-plan. And his game-plan throughout qualification was pretty clear.
England had 10 World Cup qualifying matches. They won their first 8 straight, guaranteeing them qualification, and in 7 of them, Capello employed Gareth Barry as a holding midfielder alongside Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard. The 8th match was against Andorra at Wembley, in which England won 6-nil over the only team in their group who lost every single qualification match they played. In the next two matches, which were effectively dead rubbers for England, Capello went back to the holding midfielder system, using Michael Carrick against Ukraine (a 1-nil loss) and Gareth Barry against Belarus (a 3-nil win). Of the 10 qualification matches, England had a goal difference of +25, and Capello used a holding midfielder in 9 of them. England won all 9 matches that Gareth Barry played in.
So clearly, Capello had a particular system going and had it going pretty well. Gerrard and Lampard coexisted on the pitch, anchored by a defensive midfielder who allowed them to do what they do best, get up the field and attack. The results spoke for themselves. Sure, maybe it wasn’t always pretty, and you could argue that the teams in front of England weren’t the best in the world, but all they were expected to do was win, and they definitely did that.
But on Saturday, it was like he threw a wrench in the whole operation.
Of course, I have to admit that five minutes into the match, I felt like an idiot for doubting him. Here was Steven Gerrard peeling away from Tim Howard after he knocked England ahead 1-nil. I held my hands up and said, “Well, maybe Capello got it right after all.” But the longer the match went on, the more I started to believe that my suspicions were right all along. England’s attack never really got going, and they were pretty vulnerable defensively.
So what happened to the system? What happened to the game-plan?
Yea, I get it – Gareth Barry got hurt. But you know what you do when one of your players get hurt? You put on another player who plays that position in the same system. Like the only other holding midfielder in the squad, Michael Carrick. Sure, Carrick isn’t coming off of his greatest season, but you picked him for the squad, so you should be confident that he can do the job. You know what system doesn’t work? Gerrard and Lampard in the middle on their own, with no one to provide them any cover in the midfield. About five years’ worth of experiments have given us that proof of that. So why revert back to a tried-and-failed formula? Doesn’t make any sense. And not surprisingly, that move backfired.
Whether Gerrard and Lampard can play together has been a talking point for years.
Why it backfired was as clear during that match as it ever was. With nobody behind them to provide cover, Gerrard and Lampard were wary of getting caught too high up the pitch. Getting involved with the attack is their bread and butter, not defending. So instead of bursting forward to work with Rooney and Heskey, they cautiously went up the field whenever England had possession and then rushed back to help to the back line.
And one more reason why a holding midfielder would have been great: England were playing with an unfamiliar defense. Robert Green has a grand total of 10 senior caps for his country and has never played in a major international tournament before (that must have looked pretty obvious after his YouTube sensation mistake). On top of that, Rio Ferdinand was sidelined before the World Cup even started, meaning that John Terry would be making an unfamiliar partnership alongside Ledley King in the center of defense. Playing a holding midfielder would have not only given more license for Gerrard and Lampard get forward, but it would have also given some much needed support to a back line that really needed it against the likes of Jozy Altidore, Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, and Robbie Findley. It looked even worse when King was forced off with an injury (shocker!) and Jamie Carragher came in. They looked downright slow and baffled at times out there.
One thing is clear: when Capello figures out a plan and the team executes it properly, they are tough to beat. Sure, maybe England aren’t on the same level as Spain, Brazil, or Germany, but with all that talent in the squad and all that talent sitting at the helm, they’re definitely a threat. But another thing is also clear: when England revert to the same tactics that have been deployed by every other manager in recent memory, they play like garbage.
I’m not saying he should drop Heskey or Lampard or make any huge changes to the team – only that he should bring back the tactics that got England to South Africa in the first place. Now isn’t the time to experiment, because that time is long gone.
You can talk about how Wayne Rooney wasn’t at his best, or how Robert Green cost England 3 points, or how Theo Walcott should have been included in the team, and they’re all fair points, but if England are going to make a serious push to win the tournament (and not just get to the quarters and lose on penalties), Capello has to figure out how to get the midfield firing on all cylinders. That’s the puzzle that no England manager has figured out over the last ten years. Gareth Barry is slated to start on Friday, which should come as a big relief to England fans. My question is, if Barry goes down again, are we going to see the same lineup that we saw against the US and the same system that we already know doesn’t work?
Capello is a great manager. His resume makes that very apparent. All managers get some decisions wrong from time to time, but the ability to make crucial adjustments is what sets the best apart. If England get back to the system that got them to South Africa in the first place, they should definitely get into the knockout round and from then on who knows what’ll happen. And it could turn out to be a good thing that Capello’s experiment backfired, as long as he doesn’t try it again. But if he does, then it’s going to be the same old story for England all over again. And that story always ends the same way.
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