Fabio Capello Revealing Index: Is it Justifiable?

England manager Fabio Capello has recently made a controversial move by publicly revealing his remarks on the performance of each of the English players in the recently concluded FIFA World Cup 2010.

Capello marked all of his 23 squad members out of 100 and published it in his ‘Capello Index’ website. The Italian’s conduct has sparked criticism from FA officials and it seems English players would also be disappointed by seeing the coach’s comment on their performance being revealed in public.

Alike their performances, English players got poor marks from their coach and it is not surprising at all. Only six players could attain 60 or more points from Capello and they are John Terry, Jermain Defoe, recently retired Emile Heskey, Matthew Upson, Steven Gerrard and Shaun Wright-Phillips with Defoe getting highest 62.47 marks.

Goalkeeper Robert Green, as expected, got lowest 51.67 marks. Star players like Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard got 58.87 and 58.58 marks respectively.

Overall, England’s performance in the World Cup has been rightly reflected in Capello’s marking. However, the question remains if it is justifiable for a coach of a national team to publicly reveal his comments on the performance of his players in the World Cup.

First of all, Capello himself has been criticized for his poor management and tactical mistakes. Despite suggestions from experts, he did not play Joe Cole in the starting line up. Cole was impressive in the pre-tournament friendly games playing in the hole and contributed a lot in the team’s attack.

Moreover, Capello failed to get the best out of Gerrard and Rooney by not playing Gerrard behind Rooney, even though Gerrard-Rooney combination looked pretty much effective in the friendly matches.

The most important thing is that Fabio Capello always announced his final eleven just few hours prior to the matches, and thus, not allowing his players to get well-prepared beforehand. Even John Terry publicly indicated the dissatisfaction of the players for Capello’s last minute announcement of the starting line up.

Finally, Fabio Capello should not have revealed his markings in public. This could now lead Capello to lose respect among the players and it would not help him either ahead of Euro 2012 qualifiers.

Capello could even let his comments known in a team meeting and talked about what went wrong with the team and who did what on the field and how they can improve in future as a team. In fact, there is nothing wrong in making an index, but it is a serious mistake when a coach reveals it in public.