Comments on: Marcello Lippi Is Not Worried About Making English Friends

By: Laurie

Laurie — Fri, 02 May 2008 21:47:43 +0000

Sam, I’ve always wondered exactly how much difference a NT manager can make. (In France they don’t even call him a “coach” or “manager.” He’s the “sélectionneur.” The guy who selects.)

Can Capello go beyond that and change an entire country’s mentality?

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:59:54 +0000

Arsenal aren’t in business for the benefit of the England team.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:43:57 +0000

Maybe if Arsenal actually got some English or atleast British players in their starting eleven the statistic would be better… Shame on Arsenal

By: Sam

Sam — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:33:18 +0000

CabbageMan is on the right track. What he’s said about Rooney is just the thing to get the lad motivated to correct his tense-ness around the box.

England has no lack of world-class players: Agbonlahor, Wallcott, Rooney, A Young, Hargreaves, Bentley, J Hart and a 16 year-old in the Arsenal reserves named Jack Wilshere (Hleb meets Pele’) …

Capello has the skill — psychological, mainly — to get the new generation of England to play relaxed, exciting & entertaining as well as effective football. He will tech them Catenaccio as well as balls-to-the-wall Route One and they will mix them cleverly. Capello will introduce to the lads the foreign concept of subtlety.

We won’t see it for a while, but he can develop the mentality.

The FA finally did something intelligent.

Patience. You will see.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Fri, 02 May 2008 05:35:02 +0000

i dont know about anyone else, but i think Lippi looks like a baller in that picture

By: Jan

Jan — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:35:54 +0000

A remark about the very low La Liga score though: a lot of foreign players in Spain like e.g. Eto’o or Ronaldinho have Spanish passports and are no longer counted in this stat.

By: Jan

Jan — Thu, 01 May 2008 23:32:48 +0000

Here are some “foreigner” stats for the Big 5 leagues:
La Liga: 34,2%
Serie A: 38,8%
Ligue 1: 40,1%
Bundesliga: 49,6%
Premier League: 65,8%

Stats regarding the percentage of foreign players who make the starting XI would probably be needed to put the numbers into perspective.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:14:29 +0000

ok, so maybe I was wrong. I swore I saw that figure though.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:08:13 +0000

When I read that article that lippi said that, it said somewhere in there that 80%+ of serie A were italian.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 01 May 2008 21:30:19 +0000

He does have a bit of the Newman about him doesn’t he? Sadly I think Ol Blue Eyes is retired from that acting lark.