Whatever Fabio Capello achieved in club football, for me he will always go down as a bad manager of England for one simple reasonabove all others – he failed and lacked the vision to persuade Paul Scholes to come out of retirement.
Whoever gets the job of taking England to Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine must head straight to Manchester to beg the ginger-haired midfield genius to come out of international retirement for the summer. Not only that, they must promise to build their team around him for the tournament because he is that good, even at the age of 37.
How many times have we tried to win international tournaments by playing an uncultured game that is fast, furious and doomed to failure. In Scholes England possess a pass master who would be reverred and treasured as a must for the national team if he was Spanish.
The beauty of international football is that to be successful does not require playing at the pace we see in the Premier League. World and European champions Spain showed that style not speed is the winning formula and that means passing the ball and keeping possession. Scholes is the only Englishman with the footballing brain and the passing-precision to turn our national team into something special.
Whether or not he gets the job to succeed the Italian, the people’s choice Harry Reknapp has already made his feelings clear on the subject when he said: “Let’s be honest, you would love to have Paul Scholes in the Euros this year. He’d be in your team, he’s that good. Whoever’s there would love to take him, I’m sure. You’d love him to play. He plays like the Spaniards, like Xavi [Hernandez] or [Andres] Iniesta. He does not give the ball away.”
