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England Team Left in Disarray as Fabio Capello Resigns

On Wednesday, Fabio Capello officially resigned as the manager of the England football team, leaving the national side without a boss with just months to go until the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine.

If the vacancy of the captaincy is also taken into account, with Chelsea’s John Terry having been relieved of his duties less than a week ago, the English team finds itself in a rough position.

The reason for Capello’s exit is most likely tied into the issue with the captain’s armband; the experienced Italian tactician had only recently commented on his disapproval of the English Football Association’s executive decision to strip Terry of his title as captain.

With Terry still accused of racist discrimination, having allegedly verbally abused defender Anton Ferdinand in October’s match between QPR and Chelsea, the FA have a lot of work to do in order to organize the England team in preparation for this summer’s major tournament in eastern Europe.

Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp is odds on to become the next head coach of the national side, but this is still controversial speculation, as the veteran manager was cleared from his ordeal of a tax trial on the same day that Capello himself resigned. A space may have been opened for Redknapp, but it is yet to be seen whether the FA will take the risk of approaching him.

And will the Spurs boss even desire the job? His current side sit in 3rd place in the Barclays Premier League, and the manager who that won the FA Cup in 2008 with his then side Portsmouth FC, could ideally want to finish the job that he has so brilliantly started and maintained. It could be that the almost unanimous favourite for the job may not even wish to take it.

In that case, the FA would be left chasing an obvious second-choice, with Dutchman Guus Hiddink already apparently volunteering for the job. Martin O’Neill (Northern Irish) and Alan Pardew (English) are also names that have been linked, but they seem not to desire it, and both have already suggested that Redknapp would be the ideal candidate for the positon.

Furthermore, England’s last game saw them exemplify efficiency as they won 1-0 against World and European Champions Spain at Wembley in November. To rock the boat at this point could potentially jeopardise the team’s plans for EURO 2012.

Although he came in for criticism throughout his tenure as England manager, Capello, who signed the lucrative deal to take over from Steve McClaren in 2008, had a decent record with the national team. During 42 games at the helm, his win percentage was high, 66.67%, and although his England team was knocked out of the last 16 in the 2010 World Cup Finals in Germany, it has not underperformed.

So what England must put up with now is a great amount of speculation. What the FA must do now is swiftly resolve the managerial and captaincy problems, in order to move ahead and prepare for the national team’s next important challenge, a major international competition.

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