Friday, 9th May 2008
Blame the manager
The most envied, yet dreaded job in any team is the manager's.
Whenever a team wins, the manager is seen as being just one of the reasons for success, but the front pages are inevitably reserved for the scorers, or ‘keepers who save a match.
Come defeat, however, and it is the manager who gets most of the blame.
Benitez was often hailed as the architect who built Liverpool into a major force in European competitions. Once they were eliminated from this year's Champions League, however, Benitez and his tactics have come in for the strongest blame.
Mourinho's reign at Chelsea wasn't deemed as positive, because he ‘only' managed to win the Premier League and not the Champions League.
Mancini and Moratti's love story seems to be under continuous strain just because Mancini's Inter have only managed to win a league and a half (the Calciopoli scandal award is the ½) and he's ‘only' managing to probably win just the Serie A title (Inter's and or all it matters his second and a ½ in 15 years).
At one stage even victorious Paul Zammit, the coach of newly local champions Valletta was on the line of fire. Today he's rightly hailed as one of the architects of the City's victory. It was a wise decision to support the manager then, and I believe that the club administration should provide the necessary backing to enable him to take the decisions needed for the future of the club.
The manager's fate is not only tied to board room decisions, or the mood of the president, but also to performances on the pitch. Although tactics and the game plan are his ultimate responsibility, the bottom line is how they are put into practice by the players.
One manager who has always managed to deliver is Fabio Capello. Bred at Berlusconi's sport and media empires, Capello has managed to win wherever he has been. He won with Milan, Juventus, Roma and Real Madrid.
Now the English hope that he'll win with England. The FA has said he has to reach the Semi-Finals of the 2010 and 2012 tournaments as a minimum.
The FA has acknowledged, however, that the large number of foreign players in England could hinder this target.
"It is no longer possible to consider the success of the senior men's team without acknowledging that the number of eligible players for it is declining," the association said in a report.
This is becoming a rather topical issue. FIFA has proposed that each club has to field six nationals from its country of origin. This is still just an idea and much debate still has to go into it, however it appears to be a step in the right direction.
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Comments
This year, it's been a different situation, and although I'm sure they'll win it next sunday against parma, I'm quite happy to see and feel the same feeling their supporters had after 5th May 2002. Let's hope that this day will change in their memories and that me and I'm sure other juventus supporters (like me) will be celebrating 18th May 2008.