Fabio Capello Might Be Regretting Taking That England Job Right About Now

January 7th, 2008 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Can you remember your first day at school or your first day at work? Pretty nerve racking, yes? Well now imagine you’re Fabio Capello. You’ve taken the second most high profile job in a foreign country, you’ve only recently learned the language and when you show up for your first day at the office there’s a herd of paparazzi jackals who flock around – flash-flash-flash – and start barking instructions about where to stand and what to do. Welcome to England Fabio.

Also interesting to see the contrasting approaches of Brian Barwick and Stuart Pearce. Barwick (first in) tries the old “Have to get to work, I’m just a regular man like everyone else” routine and more or less gets away with it, while England Under-21 boss Stuart Pearce goes for the tough guy approach, dressing like he came straight from the roughest biker bar in London (where he was possibly headbanging to his beloved Sex Pistols) and barely pausing long enough to give the paparazzi a well-earned look of contempt.

To make things that extra bit tougher, everyone’s favourite crazy uncle Sepp Blatter greeted Capello by claiming England had “broken a principle of international football” by appointing the Italian. Welcome indeed.

Despite the number of times Capello has been photographed lately, you’ll be shocked to learn that Fabio’s not a male model like his more muscular namesake, but an international football manager. His real work begins with his first match, a friendly against Switzerland at Wembley on February 6th.