So if not Fabio Capello, who?
Harry Redknapp? Don’t make me laugh. His wheeler-dealing is hardly appropriate to international football and any Pompey fan will tell you his tactical acumen could be engraved on a pin-head with a pneumatic drill.
Roy Hodgson? Maybe. But why would a sensible man in his 60s take on the England job in preference to rejuvenating the sleeping giant at Anfield.
Jose Mourinho? Probably the ideal choice, but the suits at the Football Association are no more likely to appoint him than they were Brian Clough in the mid-70s. And we all know he was the right man then.
But why does an international manager need to be proven at club level? It seems only UK teams are fixated on that ideal.
I’ve looked at the careers of World Cup-winning managers in my years watching football and club success does not appear to be a priority.
Franz Beckenbauer had no real managerial experience before taking over the German national side in 1984 and six years later won the World Cup.
In the six years after he left the job he managed Olympique Marseille and Bayern Munich, collecting domestic titles along the way. But that was it. He’s had more marriages than club management jobs.
Carlos Bilardo won the World Cup in 1986 – and although he had Maradona in the side, which isn’t a bad position to be in, his club experience was limited to two spells at Estudiantes and brief stints at Deportivo Cali and San Lorenzo. And he didn’t pull up any trees there.
Italy’s Enzo Bearzot spent six years as coach to his country’s under-23 side before moving up and ultimately winning the World Cup in 1982. Before that he’d been manager for one season at Prato – no me neither, Prato having last reached the heights of Serie B in 1964.
César Luis Menotti (Argentina 78)? One league title in four seasons with Newell’s Old Boys and Huracán before being given the job.
Helmut Schön (West Germany 74)? A brief spell as manager of unfancied Wiesbaden, before spending four years as manager of a then-independent Saarland side, before becoming assistant to Sepp Herberger for the West German national team and succeeding him in 1964.
Four largely uneventful years as manager of Botafogo was all Mario Zagalo had on his managerial CV before taking over the Brazilian national side and taking them to glory in 1970 despite the much discussed personality issues within the camp.
Carlos Alberto Parreira had won nothing as a club manager before leading Brazil to glory in 1990. Instead it was his achievement in getting Kuwait into the World Cup finals which raised his stock. Subsequently he has, in total, taken five nations to the World Cup finals. He didn’t even play the game at a particularly high level.
Big Phil Scolari’s club management experience was extensive but much of it was spent outside of the mainstream football nations, in Kuwait and Japan, for example; though he did win titles in Brazil. But we know how successful he was at Chelsea and it is Premiership success that we – and particularly our knee-jerk football media – demand.
Frenchman Aimé Jacquet (1998) had a successful club career and obviously Marcello Lippi (Italy 2006) had an exceptional club career, but they are the exceptions. And we only have to look back a few days to see where Lippi is now.
So the next time somebody calls for David Beckham, Alan Shearer or Stuart Pearce to be given the job don’t automatically dismiss the suggestion out of hand.
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