Lippi and Capello Fighting it Out in England?

By: Martha | December 10th, 2007

Have I mentioned he’s a pimp? Now that Jose Mourinho has worked them into a frenzy just to turn them down (allegedly for the Milan job, but we’ll try to ignore that madness), the English press have become convinced that the two men now at the top of the FA’s list for the England gig are none of than a pair of Italians: Marcello Lippi and Fabio Capello, both of whom have supposedly already been approached. [Insert totally deserved mocking here about England turning to an Italian to fix them, after spending decades bitching about the Italian style of play.]

Capello’s made no secret of his interest in the job and, in a lot of ways, he seems perfectly suited — he doesn’t really want people to like him, and doesn’t care how the football looks, as long as it works. Both of those are the attributes anyone trying to sort England out need right now, and his confidence is so vast he’ll be able to withstand the tsunamis of criticism the press and public will inevitably hurl at him the first time he tell Michael Owen to shut it. Really, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that they’d be fools not to offer him the job: Either they’ll win, or the conflicts and ensuing meltdown will be spectacular that no one will even care about the results.

Lippi, however, is something else entirely. In all honesty, I don’t want him to ever manage again. He’s won the Scudetto three times, won the Champions League, won the freaking World Cup — what else does he need to do? The man needs to spend the rest of his life fishing, smoking his cigar, and sitting on his yacht, while people wander by periodically to interview him and fall at his feet. My personal irrationality aside, however, England are enough of a mess that they seem to need to stern tactician rather than the awesome guy who brings people together, and it would take a miracle for a stint with that team to do anything but hurt Lippi’s legacy.

If the FA really are deciding between those two, I’d love to be a fly on the wall during their discussions. I bet they’ll all adore Lippi personally, but be so captivated by Capello’s arrogance and insistence that he will win everything in sight that it’ll be a unanimous decision. And then they’ll all take Lippi out for drinks.