The 10 greatest club managers of our time – Fabio Capello
Fabio Capello, popularly known as Don Fabio in Spain, managed his last football club way back in the 2006-2007 season.
The long creases on his forehead, the black rimmed glasses that hide his thinning eyebrows, the thin lips that are only visible when he is deep in thought, seem to contribute to a perpetual frown that he wears on match days.
His features doesn’t bear any semblance to a DON, forget Corleone. The closest he comes to resembling someone is the 78-year-old grumpy old man from Pixar’s movie Up.
Fabio Capello is more of a caporegime, who runs his own crew and has full control over his foot soldiers. He won everything there is to win in Serie A football as both player and manager.
1993/94 Champions League Final – AC Milan 4-0 Barcelona
The sheer number of Serie A titles won by Capello is so staggering that one could melt them and use the metal to build a custom-made Ferrari.
Capello’s list of achievements are best left alone to his Wiki page for reading at leisure.
What makes Capello one of the greatest club managers of the current era?
Before Mourinho won his first Serie A and La Liga title, Fabio Capello had been there, done that and moved on to bigger things, like managing England‘s national football team. And also, Capello humiliated Barcelona in a Champions League final by a scoreline that Mourinho can only dream of.
Well, not really, he managed the Invincibles team of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Paolo Maldini, and Franco Baresi that won him four Serie A titles in his five seasons at Milan. In the first of the four Serie A title winning seasons, Capello’s side went on a 58 match unbeaten run in the league.
Over the years, Capello developed a habit of leaving football clubs and returning for a second spell. He left Roma, AC Milan and Juventus as player and returned as manager not long after hanging up his boots.
He managed Milan three times and Real Madrid twice. He delivered Roberto Carlos to Real Madrid and Gabriel Batistuta to AS Roma. He brought success to ailing sides such as Roma in 2001 and Real Madrid in 2007.
However, the only blotch on his managerial career graph is the two Serie A titles that were revoked when he was managing Juventus. The blotch is called calciopoli and Juventus managing director Luciano Moggi was at the centre of this bribing scandal.
Before Capello took the job at Juventus, he publicly criticized the Moggi family in 2002. Despite his past differences with Luciano Moggi, Capello signed for Juventus and won back-to-back titles at the club. Juventus were later stripped of those titles as a result of bribing officials and selecting favourable referees. Ironically, Capello won the Serie A coach of the year award in 2005.
If you thought Roberto Mancini and Mario Balotelli are fighting for tabloid space today, Capello and Antonio Cassano were literally at each other’s throats a few years back.
Cassano was 10 times highly combustible than what Balotelli is today. Capello coined the term Cassanata to describe Cassano’s antics. The pair had frequent run-ins while they were at Roma and Real Madrid.
After leading Real Madrid to the league title in 2007, Capello was sacked and he took up the job as England national manager.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter was not happy about his appointment: “I would say it is a little surprising that the motherland of football has ignored a sacrosanct law or belief that the national team manager should be from the same country as the players.”
After a disappointing world cup campaign in 2010, England qualified for Euro 2012. However, he was embroiled in a tussle with the English FA regarding John Terry and he resigned from his job.
He drew much flak from England striker Wayne Rooney and the English media for not mastering the English language, despite four years as England’s manger.
For those who know Fabio Capello, he speaks football and that’s about it.
Who else made it to the list? Find out here: Top 10 managers