England's millions will not buy international success

At $12 million a year, England pays Italy's Fabio Capello (right) the highest salary of any national-team coach in the world. Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

By David Conn, Special to SI.com, World Soccer

If you are not careful when discussing England's crushing failure to qualify for Euro 2008, and the subsequent appointment of Fabio Capello as the national-team manager, you can appear to morph from cosmopolitan man of the world to foaming xenophobe. To demonstrate that you have nothing against foreign players or managers, it has to be picked through, step by step.

The first plain fact is that international soccer exists. Although its preeminence is squeezed by the globally televised fiesta of club competitions, fans suddenly remember that it is the pinnacle when European Championships and World Cups come round. The world's best players compete against each other in teams representing countries in which they, or not-too-distant ancestors, were born.

You could argue that this itself is regressive and xenophobic, dividing people along national lines, pitching country against country. Arsène Wenger, rejecting criticism of the occasions at Arsenal when he has fielded no English players, reached towards that thought, saying national teams are "the former world", while clubs, selecting players regardless of nationality, are "the future."

Few in football feel this way, however. Those who think about international sports' merits mostly prefer to believe it is a hopeful sign, of a more peaceful world, in which warfare between countries is substituted by friendly contest, an outlet for national pride, as the Argentine former World Cup winner Jorge Valdano has said, "without the fascism." Fans come together to celebrate

the best their countries can produce, and international football has provided the game's most glorious expression: Pelé in his pomp, Cruyff's drag-back, Maradona's miracles.

In England, anyway, there is no debate. Fans seem thirstier than ever for the national team to succeed, a phenomenon evidenced when a tournament is on by flags of St. George breaking out on every lager can in the land. With no xenophobia or hostility implied to foreign players at all, it is clear that a large number of very good, experienced English players are required if England is to do well on the world stage.

The defeat by Croatia of England's "golden generation" at the new $1.5 billion Wembley Stadium last November also winkled out a deeper significance in international soccer. It reminded us that national teams represent the health of a country's game, its success in producing players and managers at the apex of a sport that millions play. Away from the Premier League's captivating drama and wealth, elimination brutally exposed the fact that English soccer has become glaringly inadequate in that most fundamental respect.

As World Soccer demonstrated conclusively in its recent survey, the Premier League, its rich clubs buying ready-made stars from around the world, has more overseas players than any other. At times this season, barely 30 English players have been in action for the 20 clubs. The reasons are debatable; the Premier League seeks to argue that the English players are not good enough (strange, when the clubs themselves coach them), while others criticize the clubs for not giving their own graduates opportunities to gain experience.

Fans, though, do not seem to care about the lack of English players or managers. They still believe in their clubs as local temples of belonging, whoever is wearing the shirt, and want them only to win. This means there is no sustained pressure on Premier League clubs to field enough English players to sustain a strong national team. With England needing a goal against Croatia to qualify, the strikers thrown on at Wembley were Jermain Defoe and Darren Bent, both of whom have mostly been reserves for their club, Tottenham, this season.

When the failed English manager, Steve McClaren, was handed his customary gold-plated goodbye, the FA reached for Capello. France, Italy, Germany and Spain would never appoint a foreign coach for their national teams, not because they are xenophobic, but because a national team represents a country's soccer prowess. However successful he might be, Capello's appointment exposes a hollowing out of English soccer's coaching, too.

The English game does, though, excel at generating money, selling the rights to England matches to Sky TV, which sells on expensive subscriptions to passionate, addicted fans and eager pubs. So the FA was able to offer Capello, who was out of work, some $12 million a year, a higher salary than any other national coach. We have loads of money, reaped from people watching soccer on TV, but too few playing the game well.

Here's an idea to evade the complicated issues: What if FIFA scrapped the rule that players have to be qualified by birth to play for their countries, and allowed national teams, like clubs, to buy overseas stars? England would be an instant favorite. And fans would see nothing amiss. They would wave flags of St. George at their all-foreign England team, and hail any victory as their own.

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