fieldus

Looking at the new English manager, I had an intuition along the lines of what Terence Blacker so elegantly details below:
Terence Blacker: We just can’t face up to our Englishness - Independent Online Edition > Terence Blacker

The latest splash on the media cowshed floor concerns the appointment of an Italian Fabio Capello to become manager of the England football team. In the very week when Capello gets down to work, learning English and being taught the difference between the Hammers and the Gunners, Sepp confided to the world’s press that he found it “surprising that the motherland of football has ignored a sacrosanct law or belief that the national team manager should be from the same country as the players.”

What a hopeless misunderstanding of the motherland this remark represents. For the English, it is true, football is important: it reflects, even for the non-fan, the national soul. The identity of the England manager is for this very reason intimately bound up with our sense of self.

To put it brutally, the English do not want to look into the mirror that is national football and see Sam Allardyce staring back at them. Or Steve McClaren. Or Harry Redknapp. Or Steve Bruce. The assorted Steves, Sams and Harrys of the English game may have the heart of an ox but they look like an ox, too. The good-hearted, red-faced sincerity they exude as they stand, bellowing, on the touchline, makes us feel ever so slightly embarrassed. They remind us of a part of the English character which, just at this particular moment, we would prefer to forget.

An English club team with foreign players feels better about itself. The past may be represented by the token crop-haired Englishman churning about the midfield but the present and the future lie with the skilful, twinkle-toed foreigners who are scoring or saving the goals. When these men play on our behalf, the fans are transported and commentators forget themselves. The players may come from Spain, Italy, Nigeria or America but somehow they represent the very best of the English game. In interviews, a few halting, ill-pronounced words from a foreign manager sound more authoritative and interesting than another gush of clichés from a Steve or a Harry.

Daringly, this assumption of the superiority of foreigners has been extended to the England manager’s job. First we tried an intelligent and dignified Scandinavian but he turned out to be too quiet and, in one area at least, not quite dignified enough.

Now, as from this week, we can look in the mirror and see staring back at us a handsome, dark-haired Italian with a strong jaw, expensive spectacles and smouldering just-one-cornetto eyes. As a professional, he is ruthlessly competitive; as a man, he is a sophisticated collector of modern art. Thanks largely to us, he is extremely rich. He is determined, bright, and has that all-important lack of humour. Surely even Sepp Blatter can see that Fabio Capello is now the perfect representative of the English national soul.