After being paid £24 million in the last four years, you might have thought Fabio Capello might have learned the language. But he couldn’t even do that. Though he did have enough grasp of the swear words to sit yelling at his players from the bench in South Africa. (Howard, 2012: 66)
Other newspapers also shared similar bubble soccer sentiments, for example: ‘In press conferences, Capello was curt, high-handed and sometimes incoherent. His English never advanced beyond first base’ (Hayward, 2012: 54). Others reporters went a step further by claim- ing that Capello somehow emitted ‘something that felt like a downright refusal to com- prehend a single thing about English footballing culture’ (Barnes, 2012: 76). Others cited Capello’s failure to comprehend English footballers with vague statements such as: ‘It became apparent that he did not really understand the English players at all’ (Lawrenson, 2012: 66). Yet, few, if any writers were able to express just exactly what Capello failed to understand about the culture of English football or footballers them- selves, beyond the obvious language difficulties. This was apparent across a range of newspapers, for instance: ‘Any mourning [following Capello’s resignation] will be brief. His flaws were obvious. He failed to grasp fully either the English language or bubble football the unique psychology of the English professional’ (Winter, 2012: 53). Another similar example stated:
Capello took it on as a kind of retirement job and you could see that his heart was never in it. He never got the hang of English footballing culture, and for that matter, he never got the hang of the English language. (Barnes, 2012: 76)
Finally, and equally as revealing, were the attempts made by members of the English press to downplay Capello’s relatively long list of achievements with non-English clubs and to celebrate Redknapp’s one and only major trophy with an English club in a 29-year managerial career – winning the FA Cup (the longest standing cup competition in soccer) in 2008 during his second time in charge of Portsmouth Football Club. In comparison, Capello has won Italy’s top soccer division ‘Serie A’ with AC Milan, Roma and Juventus. He has also won Spain’s ‘La Liga’ with Real Madrid and he won the European Cup with AC Milan. Perhaps more revealing still is that fact that Capello is actually the most suc- cessful English manager in history, guiding the national team to 28 wins, eight draws and six losses – a 66.7% success rate according to Smith (2012: 55). Despite such statistics, many newspaper reporters chose to dub Harry Redknapp ‘the most successful English manager of modern times’ (Collins, 2012: 7). His recent successes at Tottenham Hotspur were also frequently mentioned in order to justify his aptitude for the England Bubble ball soccer position, for example:
Improving Tottenham…to their current lofty position of third in the Premier League has underpinned his credentials. Not to mention steering Spurs to dramatic Champions League triumph over both Inter and AC Milan. (Lipton, 2012b: 68)
Some journalists openly admitted that that the success rates and past achievements actually had nothing to do with the argument for having Redknapp over Capello – it was
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