Welcome to Get Your Own Back, with your host Fabio Capello

You get the impression that whatever an England manager did they’d get roundly criticised, even if they really didn’t have much involvement. Imagine Capello gets us to the semis, turns water into wine, and wins the Nobel Peace Prize, yet still the press find a mildly discerning characteristic that they can sensationalise into a huge issue.

This is where Capello finds himself, minus the former attributes; in a storm surrounding a website the Italian has lent his name to, a site which has been up and down more times than a cheap Amsterdam hooker, and it’s as if Don Fabio has slept with half a dozen of them, such is the hype surrounding the story. Read more.

It is of course another ridiculous own goal by the big suits up at the FA, who having got down on their knobbly knees and pleaded with Capello and his advisors to sever ties with the ‘Capello Index’ site, there must have been an error in translation. The site did go down for the best part of 20…minutes but was up quicker than it took Faria Alam to get her mitts into Sven.

Could this all be a comic masterstroke by the Italian though? I mean, sitting in Capello’s corner, how could they ever question the man with a managerial resume that stretches as tall as Crouchy and ever further? This here is revenge Signore e signori, and it tastes of sweet, sweet Pannacotta.

The most ridiculous thing about the site, apart from the fact that it’s still somehow managing to operate, is the criticism of the ratings of the England players. They were, for want of a better word, utter bollocks for pretty much the entire tournament, minus maybe half an hour against the Germans. It’s true that you could go over being cheated by the referee until the cows come in, but you don’t hear the Ghanaians constantly going on about Luis Suarez’s handball. That’s because it’s happened. Sepp Blatter isn’t going to go back and be like ‘right Germany should have gone out, and England would have definitely gone on to win it with that momentum’ and handed England the trophy. Maybe with enough money though…

Now even the Premier League’s involved with this whole mess, all because they’re using the logo. Not the logo?!

Fear not, it's the old logo
My idea for the people over at Capello Index HQ would be to subtly rename the competition. You’d imagine if they thought up some imaginative, offensive, and downright repulsive name for the ‘best league in the world’ the people who run the league would be a darn site happier than if they used their precious logo. They might even crack out some of that oh so special Barclays Premier League champagne. Steady now.

All in all, this index may well have done wrong, and has indeed given the papers something to fill their muddied pages with, but in all seriousness they really haven’t done a massive amount wrong. Rating players is something that fans thrive on, a part of football that gets tongues wagging more than anything else, so to shut down a site which could spark discussion like nothing else is rather daft. It’s us, the fans, that have made the game what it is today, and then there’s Capello. Don’t give your bloody name to something in the first place if you can’t take the backlash afterwards, and, instead of pleading ignorance, come out and face the music.