Fabio Capello has a quartet to assist him in his new role as England manager. Let’s take a look at his team:
.
Franco Baldini
Mr. Baldini, 47, was Director of Sport at AS Roma and Real Madrid during the respective tenures of Mr. Capello. He is noted for his keen scouting methods, a very detailed eye for football talent, along with the ability to have players put pen to paper.
According to Matt Lawton of the Daily Mall:
“Baldini is a more interesting appointment, not least because his role as a sporting director at Roma and Madrid is so obviously geared to club football. He is Capello’s most trusted aide but his expertise is in scouting and signing players.However, Capello sees a role for Baldini in his new set-up liaising with the 20 Barclays Premier League managers. He is someone whose opinion on players Capello values. Baldini will watch as many games as his boss and his extensive knowledge will also come in handy when preparing dossiers on the opposition. In addition, his excellent grasp of English and his warm personality makes him a natural link between the colder Capello and the media.”
.
Italo Galbiati, Assistant Coach
Mr. Galbiati, 69, was a member of the famed Inter Milan sides of the 1960s. This was the period of time when catenaccio became the gold standard of Italian football. Mostly due to the efforts of Helenio Herrera, the coach of Internazionale.
According to Paul Kelso of The Guardian:
“Galbiati was part of the Internazionale squad of the 1960s that won three Serie A titles and two European Cups. He later became a youth-team coach at Milan, progressing to become part of their management team under Capello. The pair have been inseparable since with Galbiati the ‘good cop’ to Capello’s bad.”
.
Massimo Neri, Fitness Trainer
Mr. Neri is 48 years of age, and never played at the higher flights of professional football. He has been with Mr. Capello since 2001.
Rob Hughes of the International Tribune wrote a concise yet compelling quote in the summer of 2006 when Mr. Neri began to work with Real Madrid. This quote referenced their pre-season training in the Alps:
“Massimo Neri, the fitness trainer and torturer in chief, worked the brief summer laziness out of the squad. Saturday would be the easy part: skipping, sprinting, heart and lung monitoring. The players would run 50 meters up an incline eight times, but endurance was for another day. On Sunday things became tougher. There was a 3,000-meter uphill run above verdant fields selected by Neri. Monday? Double the distance, and no complaints about the heat and altitude. The so-called Galactico period of three years of high living and low achievement at Real Madrid is over.”
.
Franco Tancredi: Goalkeeping Coach
Mr. Tancredi, 52, played at AS Roma for 11 years. He was a part of the Italian team at World Cup 1986 in Mexico as the second keeper. He won a Scudetto (Italian Championship) with Roma in 1983, and was also seriously injured in 1987 by a projectile thrown on the pitch. After his retirement in 1990, he became the goalkeeper coach at AS Roma until 2004. When Mr. Capello left Roma to manage Juventus, Mr. Tancredi joined him for two years. He would then follow him to Real Madrid in 2006. In recent years, he coached Iker Casillas and Gianluigi Buffon. Mr. Tancredi has a sterling reputation in Italian football.
From my recollections of watching him play, he was not as physically imposing as many keepers, but was fundamentally very sound with quick reflexes. He was also very adept at cutting down the angles to compensate for a lesser degree of reach.
He was quoted in Yahoo! Sport Italia:
“Se e quando rivedrò i vari Hansen, Grobbelaar, Souness, dirò loro che quella è l’unica partita che vorrei rigiocare della mia carriera”.
” ‘I am overjoyed – was the first comment by Tancredi – but I take into account that it won’t be an easy task, seeing that in the first four EPL squads there are four foreign starting keepers, and frequently, so are the backups…’ Franco Tancredi will rediscover after 23 years the kick that evaded him from winning the European Champions Cup against Liverpool in the final at the Olympic Stadium: ‘If and when I see again Hansen, Grobbelaar, and Souness, I will tell them that was the only game in my career that I would like to replay.’ “
Translation by Steve Amoia.
Steve Amoia is the author and editor of World Football Commentaries and also writes for Soccerlens.
Add Sportslens to your Google News Feed!
