I’m sure Theo Walcott will start.
He’s 19 and the hero of Zagreb and Wayne says Theo, 19, can be a big player for England.
But it’s not Fabio Capello’s job to develop players. It’s his job to develop a style. It’s his job to develop a winning style that uses the Anglo-Saxon virtues of passion and belligerence, as well as the skills of his top players.
Passionate and belligerent himself, Fabio can do that. He won’t make us defensive and scared and Italian, as Sven did.
We have now seen that a charismatic coach CAN lift England, can organise them, can motivate them. More than before, they want to play for England. Yes, they are scared of Capello, but they want to play for him. Sven was in awe of the England stars and in love with Beckham. They never respected his No.2, Steve McClaren, either.
But Capello has the personality, the CV, the knowledge. So Rio, Wayne and Ashley and the boys are at last being coached by someone as authoritative as Sir Alex or Mourinho or Wenger or Scolari.
After Ukraine won 3-1 in Kazakhstan, Dutch coach Arno Pijpers was sacked. Meanwhile, England had won 4-0 in Zagreb and Walcott scored the first goal and a hat-trick.
So this is the game after Zagreb, the game where 90,000 want to cheer a transformed team, the game where 90,000 wait to hail the little Italian martinet in the Three Lions blazer.
It’s been a steep learning curve for Capello, who is a decisive character. Decisions come easily to him. He played Rooney as a lone striker in Paris and, while England were losing that friendly to a Ribery penalty, he saw that Rooney can’t play a lone striker role. So he scrapped that idea and moved on to explore other ideas.
If his style gets results, as looks likely, Capello will qualify for South Africa and he may be able to use a couple of young players that he is not using right now, like Ashley Young, Micah Richards or Gabby Agbonlahor.
Kazakhstan’s caretaker coach Bernd Strock is a German who was their Under-21 boss. He has sacked most of the senior team who lost to Croatia and Ukraine. Only four players remain among the 21 he named in the squad to face England.Then rest are his Under-21 squad. He thinks they are better players. They probably are. But the gap between Under-21 football competition and World Cup qualifying football is massive.It’s far, far bigger than most armchair fans realise.
In general, this is a good time to be playing Kazakhstan. They rate as a minnow because they are 131 in the FIFA rankings but it’s not a small, poor nation. It’s the ninth biggest country in the world and has vast oil and mineral resources. Its economy is by far the biggest in Eurasia. In four years time their football team might be much more impressive than it is now
But, as I say, it’s about developing a style game by game. England have to use the few training sessions and the games to forge an effective style that employs what we do best.
Capello knows that injuries will prevent him ever playing the same eleven in consecutive games, so he needs a squad of confident players who can express themselves and belkieve in each other. His squads may lack flair but they have a decent depth of competence.
At the moment we’re witnessing the beginnings of belief. We’re starting to see an England team playing with the kind of structure and belief that they had in their peak performances under Bobby Robson in 1990, when Des Walker marked Marco van Basten and Jurgen Klinsmann out of the game, and when we had five world class players. We now have Rio, Wayne and Stevie G. We need another couple. If England beat Kazakhstan they should be in good shape to win in Belarus. And if Croatia come back from a bad beating to draw in Ukraine, that will help England to win the group.
ANR’s recent England coverage is here.
PS. One important thing I’ve been meaning to mention: Myles has been called up for jury service. I start on Monday morning.