The Oxford English Dictionary defines legacy as ‘something handed down by a predecessor’ and time is running out for Fabio Capello.
With five months to retirement and crisis in the air, hope is fading fast for a tangible return on English football’s four-year investment of £24million.
Perhaps Capello was (and still is) gambling everything on winning a trophy.
Frustration: Fabio Capello has achieved little during his time with England
It could still happen, although far more likely is that he will leave for the next man a confused dressing room devoid of leadership or direction. The sooner his successor can start to repair the damage, the better.
Stuart Pearce aside, there is not one aspiring coach in the country who will feel touched by four years of Capello. No-one other than Pearce has been able to mine his vast knowledge for tips on handling big egos and winning big trophies.
Communication is central to so much of the Capello story, from the Capello Index to the captaincy. The manager of a national team has a duty to communicate clearly with the nation and that has not happened because of language limitations.
Roll up to an England training session and there are half a dozen coaches, chatting in Italian as they wait for the players.
Crunch time: Capello will meet FA chairman David Bernstein for talks
Only general manager Franco Baldini committed himself and got to grips with the language and the culture but now he is back in Italy, working for Roma.What should we have expected? That Capello might add some magic to a team of high-quality individuals and improve England’s hopes of success?
The World Cup was a sobering lesson. Capello may be a supreme club coach but he had never managed a team in an international tournament and his preparation was plain wrong. He might get that bit right this time if he’s still around at the end of the season but no-one will go to Euro 2012 with much optimism, no matter who is in charge.
Maybe his gift has been to lower expectations. Maybe we should thank Capello for ensuring we all realise our footballers are not as good as they think they are.If we cannot get anywhere with him, we might as well give experience to less decorated but home-grown coaches and make sure they learn something on the way to not winning anything. We tried that once (or twice) and didn’t like it but perhaps this experience will put to rest the idea that coaches with exotic names know more than those without.
One of the first things Capello identified was the issue of too few English players in the Premier League, but what has he done about it? Not much. He either does not have the language skills or the inclination to start a scrap he expected to lose.
Under fire: Capello has had a troubled week over the John Terry captaincy
Capello has not argued that clubs must wise up and start releasing their players for international youth tournaments to improve the senior team’s chances. He left that to Sir Trevor Brooking.
The England manager has to take up the FA’s fight on youth development, yet there were times when Capello could not bring himself to watch the Under 21s, even as they reached the Euro finals in 2009. A year on and Joe Hart, James Milner, Theo Walcott and Adam Johnson from that squad were in the reckoning for a place at the World Cup.
Capello has not pushed the outer limits of his job specification. As a club manager, he is used to working day-to-day to get results. This is acceptable when you have a game to focus on every three days but an international manager has barely one a month.
But what of the emergence of youngsters like Hart, Jack Wilshere and Phil Jones? Is this his legacy? He gave them their debuts but Capello did not select Jones until he had moved from Blackburn to Manchester United.
Until the World Cup, he ran from youth, leaving Walcott behind and not daring to test Hart. By tempting Jamie Carragher out of international retirement and trying to do the same with Paul Scholes, he threatened the next generation’s development.
Capello generally snubbed players from unfashionable clubs and relied on those from Manchester United, insisting it’s best if players all come from one club, like when the Italy team all came from AC Milan or Juventus.
If Capello leaves on Wednesday it is hard to see the legacy he leaves for English football. If he sticks around there’s always a chance he can fluke a win at the Euros. It’s not very likely, but what if? Should we pretend the Capello years were a gift to the nation?
That might be more dangerous for the future of English football.
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