Monday, December 24, 2007

Fabio Capello Goes "Brit"

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Fabio Capello is making an effort to adapt to the English lifestyle and learn the language in a month by taking intensive lessons with a full-time teacher is provoking admiration. 

 

Language problems aside, Italians can't imagine adapting to English food, climate and customs. Capello, however when Captain of Real Madrid, he rarely ate spaghetti, opting instead for Basque food at the Txistou restaurant.

Though Capello is regarded as one of the best coaches in international football, Capello is not universally liked in Italy because of his "tough" personality, his unpopular managerial decisions and most of all because he has never expressed a desire to coach the "Azzurri", the Italian national team. Nor has he expressed a particular love for his home country, having always expressed interest in foreign teams and a desire to be abroad.

Italians tock notice  when Capello declared in an interview with La Stampa that he would like to be there for an England-Italy final in 2010's World Cup. That would be nasty, indeed.

 

Fabio Goes Native

Guardian Unlimited – UK

Anna Masera

December 23, 2007

Bookmakers are offering odds already that by next February, England's new football manager, Fabio Capello, will conduct a press conference without an interpreter. The successful manager and former player, appointed to the England job on December 14, has already garnered much media speculation because of his poor English

Though he is regarded as one of the best coaches in international football, Capello is not universally liked in Italy because of his "tough" personality, his unpopular managerial decisions and most of all because he has never expressed a desire to coach the "Azzurri", the Italian national team. Nor has he expressed a particular love for his home country, having always expressed interest in foreign teams and a desire to be abroad.

However, his promise to adapt to the English lifestyle and learn the language in a month by taking intensive lessons with a full-time teacher is provoking in Italians a mix of sympathy and admiration. Nobody really believes it is possible to do it so quickly - the language barrier is a widely shared problem in Italy - and as much as the English have a stereotyped opinion of Italians, it is the same vice versa. Language problems aside, Italians can't imagine adapting to English food, climate and customs.

Yet they know that Capello is different: he can adapt very well to local customs - when he was coach in Madrid, he rarely ate spaghetti, opting instead for Basque food at the Txistou restaurant. Capello's son, Pier Filippo, announced that his father is looking for a home in London, where his wife Laura will join him. So, newspapers in Italy are publishing maps of London with the Mayfair area highlighted as a location of preference for his initial headquarters - neither too modern nor too trendy, as that's not his style. In addition, since he is known to be a lover of classical music and contemporary art, the articles about his future private life are full of details of the many other options London has to offer.

But the most discussed "detail", the one that stands out and irritates most, is the amount of money he will earn with his new contract: 9m for four and a half years, meaning he will be the highest-paid manager in the history of national teams.

Capello has also announced that managing the England team will be the last role of his managerial career. Bookmakers aren't betting on that yet. But their eyes are focused on another possibility: Capello declared in an interview with La Stampa that he would like to be there for an England-Italy final in 2010's World Cup. That would be nasty, indeed.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/anna_masera/2007/12/fabio_goes_native.html

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