Fabio Capello and the Future

So… no England at Euro 2008 this summer. And there’ll be constant reminders of that from now until June 29th. No doubt it’s a disaster, but at least it brought about a change of management. And that’s about the most positive spin I can put on it:

No Euro 2008 = No Steve McClaren

(Almost seems like a fair trade…)

What we have now is Fabio Capello and the future. And despite the insipid display against France in March I’m going to cling to the positives and focus on better times ahead. Here’s all the recent England news:

Capello says the “door is open” for Beckham to play at the 2010 World Cup - I take this to mean Capello isn’t ruling anything out. If Beckham’s in form (even for LA Galaxy) at the time then why not? McClaren’s big mistake was ruling Beckham out altogether and then having to backtrack. That was stupid.

England vs Scotland coming back - This is great great news. If only because it means at least one friendly will be worth watching again.

Rio Ferdinand in line to be permanent England captain - No guarantees or anything yet, but this wouldn’t be a huge surprise. If you’d told me this a year ago I’d have laughed in your face. Now it seems like a good idea. Have you seen the way he’s played for Man Utd recently while wearing that armband? Leo Messi himself couldn’t get around him.

Capello won’t take kindly to friendly pullouts - England have two games coming up: vs USA at Wembley on May 28th and vs Trinindad & Tobago in Port of Spain on June 1st. Exactly the kind of end of season friendlies that usually cause an epidemic of England thigh strains. But Capello has suggested that any big time Charlies pulling out of those games are risking their international futures. Only time will tell if he means it.