Fabio Crapello: Reactions On England’s Defeat In Paris

FABIO CRAPELLO Watch – Anorak’s look at the building up and doing down of England manager Fabio Capello

DAILY MIRROR: “Capello discovered that he really will have to earn that £6million a year as the painful limitations of his side were starkly on display. The Italian insisted he was “happy” with what he had witnessed but if that is not to be a smokescreen the FA is being robbed blind.”

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “You would expect nothing less from England‘s King of Bling. Intriguingly Lilian Thuram, the France captain, celebrated the fact that he was winning his 138th international cap by wearing black boots. But then Thuram has got plenty of gold back home. After all, unlike Beckham, he has won both World Cup and European Championship medals in his time with France. And, unlike Beckham, Thuram still plays proper football, with Barcelona.”

THE INDEPENDENT: The France coach, Raymond Domenech, said the match had been a “test against a good side. I think it was more of an ‘intelligent’ match than a spectacular game,” he explained. “It was very tactical, perhaps industrious more than entertaining, but it was a solid performance. We worked hard, but we can play better. But a match won is always better than a match lost.”

It is a line Capello would have liked to have used.

James Lawton: “New dawn and it’s quite a wake-up call for Capello”

David Beckham’s historic night quickly enough became Fabio Capello’s bleak dawn. We all know this kind of morning. Everything seems a bit too much.

However, £6m a year provides a jauntier perspective and if England‘s new manager appeared to have several mountains to climb here, no one could say he hadn’t been preaching patience almost from the moment he got off the plane. The one from Italy, that is, not the one which touched down at Charles de Gaulle.

THE SUN: “EIFFEL SHOWER”

It was the same old England — dull, boring and uninspiring.

Sun Online Poll: “WHAT DO YOU THINK? – French fried: Is Capello still the right choice?”

TIMES: No French fireworks as golden moment ends with yellow card

So, that was the Great David Beckham Centennial. It went fairly well, didn’t it? The parade of costumed local drama students, gathering on stilts to spell out the message “Félicitations à Becks – cent chapeaux”; the march-past of models sporting every Beckham haircut since 1996 (all 627 of them); the release of 100 doves into the Paris sky – none of these was laid on by the French hosts, who must now face accusations of a failure to rise appropriately to the occasion.

Crapello Rating: A mild stink

Anorak

Posted: 27th, March 2008 | In: Back pages Comments (6) | TrackBack | Permalink