HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008!

May you guys have a great new year ahead!

Lotsa prosperity, good health and happy moments!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

May Christmas remind us the very fundamental reason for the celebration, that Christ came to this world to do something about our sins and be the saviour for all mankind!

FOOTBALL MALAYSIAN STYLE

Trigger-Happy Malaysian Referee Under Investigation

A Malaysian referee is in custody after discharging a firearm during league play...

An unnamed Malaysian referee fired warning shots into the air to subdue an angry mob of players after having sent one of them off in a local fixture.

The whistler serves as a policeman for his day job, and apparently had his gun with him in his car at the time of the match.

As furious players reacted badly to a red card decision, he rushed to his patrol car to pick up his gun and, pointing it skywards, unleashed bullets.

However, his actions did not sit well with his superiors, who have taken him into custody.

Reuters news agency quotes a local newspaper as follows:

"We are investigating as to whether the policeman was justified in taking out his firearm and discharging it, and also why he had it with him during the match.

"However, the official could have the last laugh. Five of the players have joined him in the cells, and could be sanctioned for rioting.

Steve Michaels, Goal.com

FOOTBALL: BARCELONA 0-1 BAPTISTA

'The Beast' is finally getting the credits he deserved. He took his chances extremely well. I had been on his side and urging Schuster to give him more chances to start as I had repeated that he was one of the most consistent players apart from Figo in the past. Baptista has not disappoint me and he delivered in the biggest match ever in the La Liga. Now, will Schuster put more faith in him? I want to see more beautiful goals!

FOOTBALL: CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LAST 16 DRAW

Interesting line-up if I do say so myself!

FC Porto - Schalke 04
Chelsea - Olympiacos
Real Madrid - Roma
AC Milan - Arsenal
Barcelona - Celtic
Manchester United - Lyon
Inter Milan - Liverpool
FC Sevilla - Fenerbahce

FOOTBALL: EL CLASICO

23 December, 2007
18:00 UK - Estadio Camp Nou

BARCELONA VS. REAL MADRID

The most anticipated, high scoring, fierce clash in football rivalry is coming this weekend! It was unfortunate that not all the superstars can take part because of injuries. Messi and Henry are some examples.

Well, I just heard Kaka was named the 2007 FIFA World Player of the Year. Congratulations to him!

FOOTBALL: SUPER WEEKEND

AC Milan VS. Boca Juniors

Liverpool VS. Manchester United
Arsenal VS. Chelsea

Valencia VS. Barcelona

Four huge matches of the weekend. For AC Milan and Boca Juniors, it is the final of the FIFA Club World Cup. It is an honour of European and South American football which is at stake. Will the underperformed AC Milan bring the pride back to Europe?

Arsenal have 37 points, Manchester United have 36 points, Chelsea have 34 points, Liverpool have 30 points but a game at hand. The battle at the top is really close. Of course, not to forget Portsmouth and Manchester City which follow closely from behind with 30 points each.

For Barcelona, it is to keep the pressure on leaders Real Madrid at the top. Valencia are not in the best of shape currently. They have not scored in 5 matches, being just knocked out of the Champions League as well as losing David Villa to injury. Barcelona welcome back Samuel Eto'o. Real have 35 points and Barcelona have 31 points, followed closely behind by Atlético Madrid with 30 points.

FOOTBALL: MORE QUOTES ON CAPELLO

There are two more quotes added:

"If you want to bet on football, you get only 50-50 chances maximum on normal managers. With Capello's team, your chances of winning increase to 90-10"- DieHardX, a football fan.

"With instant noodles, you get to eat in 3 minutes. With fast food, you get to eat in 5 minutes. With Don Fabio, you get at least a trophy in 1 season. Choose Don Fabio for instant results!"- the advertisement slogan of Don Fabio if it is a brand.

____________________________________________________________

An interesting article at Soccernet.com written on the 13th December, 2007. I just copied and pasted the front part. For the rest, click the link below.

Capello can polish faded golden generation

Chris Murphy


Roll the tape forward two-and-a-half years.

A defensive England side are labouring towards a one-nil victory over Brazil in a supremely dull World Cup final in Johannesberg.

John Terry puts the shackles on Robinho; Owen Hargreaves marks Kaka out of the game and Micah Richards doesn't even allow Ronaldinho enough space to floss his impressively large teeth.
The seconds tick away.

Wayne Rooney dribbles towards the corner flag and shows no signs of moving.

The three minutes of injury time are up, the referee blows for full-time and it is confirmed: England are World Champions.

Fair enough, they had a scare getting out of the group stages after a fortunate draw against Ghana and yes, the penalty that handed them victory in the quarter final against France was for a foul a few inches outside the box.

But the two words tripping off the lips of football fans up and down the land are these; who cares?!

Who cares that the manager is Italian? Who cares if his philosophy is built on a sturdy back-line? Who cares if England only managed to score more than one goal twice in the competition?

A fanciful notion it all may be but if Fabio Capello can instil order, discipline and structure into an England side that unquestionably has talent who knows how far they can go?

FOOTBALL: DON FABIO CAPELLO - ENGLAND'S SAVIOUR?

With Don Fabio confirmed as the national coach of England, it is definitely interesting to see what changes he will bring. I am not a fan of the England national team and you hardly hear me saying anything good about them. You can probably blame the press for always giving them too much publicity beyond their abilities. That's why whenever you hear of England, people just have 1 word to sum it all. Over-rated! Now, it is totally different because I always like to see what Capello is capable of doing in difficult situations. It is like following a detective storyline. He is always going to places where the problems are so massive that people want to avoid it. I get interested in England because of the coach.

How will he solve the problem? England's last trophy was the World Cup in 1966. The next World Cup will be in 2010 in South Africa. Will England's wait be over by then? If he can bring the World Cup back after 44 years of waiting (by then), he will be the most respected football coach in football history. Can he do it? Well, that's what I am interested to find out! With Capello, it is never a big risk to make a bet.

Don Fabio can be boss of bosses

By Sam Wallace

Thursday December 13 2007

The latest joke about the prospective new England manager: how does Fabio Capello solve the Lampard-Gerrard conundrum? Answer: drop both of them.

The tough guy is coming and, so the wisdom goes, the more ruthless Don Fabio is with the underachieving team, the better. He talks English like some growling long-lost relative of the Sopranos because there is an old rule of popular opinion that any new England manager should be the polar opposite to what went before him.

Kevin Keegan was the players' friend, brought in to appease those whose feelings had been hurt by Glenn Hoddle's aloofness. Sven Goran Eriksson was the balm to the frenetic Keegan reign, the detached Swede to calm the ship after what Gary Neville once called the "dark days."
Six years of Eriksson and the English supporters had decided they were fed up with Johnny Foreigner -- Eriksson and Luiz Felipe Scolari. What was needed was an English hand on the tiller.

Twenty months on from Steve McClaren's appointment it turns out they were wrong about that one, too.

Medals

What is actually required is a coach so successful that he could not give a damn for the reputations of the most famous players. The kind of manager who has more medals than Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard put together. It tells everyone what they already knew about the England national team: that the FA go back to the drawing board each time in the hope that the latest radical departure will be the one who solves 40 years of chronic underachievement.

As a football coach, however, Capello is arguably the most credible man the English Football Association has appointed since the war. His suitability to coach the footballers of this generation, to win trophies in the modern game and to stand up to all the attendant pressures that the England job brings are simply not in question. He is managerial gold. The problem is that he is taking on a team whose performances are more commonly compared to another naturally produced substance at the opposite end of the scale.

First it is important to dispel one nonsense that has stuck to Capello as he has become the leading contender over the last seven days: that old criticism that his teams play dull, defensive football.

For the English football nation to make that kind of complaint at this lamentable stage of their national team's history would be comparable to stepping outside on Christmas Day and commenting that the brand new Ferrari sitting by the kerb for you is very nice but could you please have it in a different colour?

If Capello wants to play catenaccio for the next two and half years to get England to the next World Cup finals, then that would be infinitely more preferable to the shambolic retreat against Croatia in last month's Euro 2008 qualifying disaster.

The England team are currently outside the top 16 in Europe alone, low on confidence and under immense pressure to qualify for 2010.

If they were a government department, they would be deemed not fit for purpose. In short, the team needs to be rebuilt, first and foremost, into a winning side.

The truth is that Capello is far too smart and too successful to be just one kind of coach whose teams have only ever played one kind of football.

What Capello has that none of his predecessors shared is the right to call himself bigger than the England job. He has a record and a reputation that make him a lot grander than the organisation and team he is about to take charge of.

Character

It is worth considering a brief history of Capello outside of football because it tells you something about the character.

His father was a primary school teacher who, during the Second World War, had been interned in a German prisoner camp. As a young player, Capello's father took him to a trial with the side SPAL, the equivalent of Wigan Athletic in 1960s Italian football, from Ferrara near Bologna.

It was in that town he met his wife, Laura, who was studying to be a teacher.

They have two sons, Pierfilippo, a lawyer who acts for his father, and Edoardo, who has two children himself.

After his career as a player at Roma, Juventus and Milan ended, Capello gained experience in business with Mediolanum, one of Silvio Berlusconi's companies, where he worked in insurance.

He left to work in the academy at Milan but not before he gained some understanding of the working world outside football and picked up enough English to get him by when speaking to Dutch players in his later years as a manager.

Apparently, the talk of him owning an art collection worth €15m is wide of the mark but he is a classical music connoisseur and a regular at La Scala.

All of which will delight the chattering classes who claim a stake in English football now, especially as the only clue to the musical tastes of McClaren was when he turned up at a Take That show.

Capello, however, does not seem the type to be seduced by the celebrity of the job in the same way as happened to Eriksson.

He has too much of a reputation to protect and appears to take himself extremely seriously. His life has been a study in football, and a very successful one too.

- Sam Wallace

The Stats Stack Up for 'Don Fabio'

The numbers are hard to argue with: nine league titles and one Champions League in 16 years as a coach make Fabio Capello supremely qualified to be England manager.

But, and England fans might regard this as no bad thing, the 61-year-old has not been afraid to upset egos and even ostracise some of the biggest names in football - ask David Beckham or Ronaldo.

His first team - the AC Milan of the early 1990s - was arguably his best.

Inheriting the Dutch trio of Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard from Arrigo Sacchi, Capello ruled Italian football for five years.

Four Scudetti mark their domestic dominance but it was the 1994 Champions League victory which was Capello's crowning achievement at the San Siro.

Milan faced a Barcelona side who had ruined Manchester United in the semi-finals when Romario and Hristo Stoichkov had bamboozled the English champions.

The build-up to the final in Athens predicted a contest between Catalan flair and Italian conservatism but the forecasts were utterly confounded as Barca were taken apart and were probably grateful to lose only 4-0.

Daniele Massaro scored twice before half-time and Dejan Savicevic knocked the Spanish champions on to the canvas with a third two minutes into the second half before Marcel Desailly delivered the coup de grace.

But, even if the game remains the strongest memory of his work in the minds of England fans of a certain age, it is not typical of Capello's career, much of which has been classically Italian with an emphasis on defence.

The glory of Athens quickly faded as Milan finished fourth in Serie A and were defeated in the Champions League final by an Ajax side featuring a new generation of Dutch talent.

The Scudetto was regained in 1996 but at the end of the season he was on his way to Real Madrid, his pride wounded when he learned Milan were grooming the Uruguayan Oscar Washington Tabarez to take charge.

Tabarez duly took over but, while Capello was away winning the Spanish league title with Real Madrid, Milan had a disastrous year.

Tabarez was quickly replaced by old hand Sacchi, but the former coach could not find a cure for the Milan malaise and the team finished a dismal 11th. In his absence, Capello had made his point and was recalled to the San Siro for the beginning of the 1997-98 season.

But 'Don Fabio' found he no longer exerted the same influence he had once enjoyed over the Milan players and could do nothing to prevent another miserable season - Milan finished 10th - or his own departure from the club for the second time.

After a year out of the game Capello was back, this time with perennial Italian underachievers Roma. And it was there that Capello rediscovered his touch.

He claimed the Scudetto again - only the third in Roma's history - in 2000-01 and finished second both the following year and in 2003-04 but his tenure was marked by a venomous fall-out with Roman idol Francesco Totti.

But Capello's remarkable track record persuaded Juventus to tempt him to the Stadio delle Alpi.

He recruited Brazilian midfield general Emerson from Roma for £19.5million and added him to a team featuring the likes of Alessandro del Piero, Pavel Nedved, David Trezeguet and Lilian Thuram.

Another league title followed but he was denied another Champions League final in Athens when Juventus were drawn against a Liverpoool side apparently fated to win.

And his time in Turin ended in 2006 with the club embroiled in a grubby match-fixing case which left the integrity of Italian football at an all-time low and Juve stripped of a Scudetto, even if Capello was entirely innocent.

Fortunately for him, Real Madrid came calling again to offer a way out when new club president Ramon Calderon nailed his colours to Capello's mast - declaring him the coach most likely to get the best out of a talented but malfunctioning team.

Capello's emphasis on defence was not popular in the Bernabeu's cheap seats but the Italian dismissed the criticism and insisted results were more important than style.

At first, he achieved neither and publicly lambasted Beckham, Ronaldo and Antonio Cassano. Ronaldo left for Italy shortly after but Beckham, having been exiled from the first team following the announcement of his summer move to Los Angeles Galaxy, was brought back as Madrid rallied to take advantage of a loss of nerve at Barcelona and win Capello's second Primera Liga title.

It was not enough to prevent his sacking and, after leaving the Bernabeu, speculation had Capello either retiring or taking a job in Major League Soccer which is close to the same thing.

Now, however, he is in line to take up what will be the biggest challenge of his career - turning England from international also-rans and might-have-beens into genuine contenders.

Copyright (c) 2007 Press Association

10 Things About Fabio Capello

He is a confirmed art buff and has a private collection worth £10million.

Capello has enjoyed success at Wembley before. In his playing days, he scored for Italy against England at the old stadium in 1973 to secure the Azzurri's first win over the Three Lions.

Capello's teams are notoriously hard to beat. Under him, AC Milan completed a run of 58 games without defeat.

Following his retirement as a player, Capello worked for AC Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi as a manager of one of the tycoon's companies, Mediolanum.

Last year he claimed in the Italian press that Fascist dictator General Franco had "left a legacy of order" in Spain.

Capello's son Pierfilippo, a lawyer, is likely to be representing him in talks with the Football Association.

Capello has twice been replaced by Germans at Real Madrid - Jupp Heynckes in 1997 and Bernd Schuster a decade later.

Capello has won the league title with every team he has managed - AC Milan, Real Madrid, Juventus and Roma.

He has a passion for jamon iberico, Spanish ham - and while at Juventus, he had it specially imported to him from Spain.

During his second spell at Real Madrid he had disagreements with a number of star players - including Ronaldo, fellow Italian Antonio Cassano and David Beckham.

Copyright (c) 2007 Press Association

Fabio Capello - What They Said

"Even when Jose Mourinho was in the running, I believed that Capello had even more charisma, talent and experience for a challenging job like this one" - former Italy and Chelsea star Gianfranco Zola, tipped to be one of Capello's assistants for England.

"With Capello you can start dreaming of winning something again. He'll give you the best chance you have had for ages, a better chance than Sven-Goran Eriksson did" - former Italy coach Dino Zoff.

"Capello is ideal for this job. If England are capable of winning something, I truly believe Capello is the man who will bring it out in them" - Arrigo Sacchi, who Capello succeeded at AC Milan in 1991.

"He doesn't play for the beauty of the game but to win. You don't see him laughing much - he's moody. But he knows what he wants. You have to go his way or you will get in trouble. He screams at you" - Ruud Gullit, who played under Capello in the Italian's first spell at Milan.

"I have known Fabio for a long time and he is an outstanding candidate. As far as the technical part of the job is concerned, you do not have to worry about him. He is a strong man, with a strong character" - Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

"In a perfect situation, you would get someone from England, that would be good, everyone in England would prefer it. But the most important criteria is to find a manager who is going to be successful and the choices in England are very limited" - Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

"England has quality players but results haven't really shown everybody the potential of the team. (Capello) knows that and it's a challenge for him, to go where the results are lacking and make those great players a good team" - Clarence Seedorf, who played under Capello in the Italian's first spell at Real Madrid.

"He has worked with big players throughout his career and he's always been a winner wherever he has gone. Fabio thinks about England as the mother of the game and the teacher of football and I am sure he would like to be England manager" - Franco Baldini, Capello's assistant at Roma and Real Madrid.

"It would be a beautiful challenge" - Capello, talking about the England manager's job in the Italian press the day after the team had missed out on qualification for Euro 2008."

"Let's make this clear - a player that has such an important contract with another club can't play for us. He will not play. He will train with us but he is not going to play. It's the club's decision" - Capello appears to suggest in January that David Beckham would never play for him at Real Madrid again after agreeing a contract with Los Angeles Galaxy.

The former England captain forced his way back into Capello's squad as Real won the La Liga title.

Copyright (c) 2007 Press Association

"Capello is the best possible choice for England" - Marcelo Lippi.

"It's enough to see how many trophies Capello won in his career to realise what his qualities are and what he can bring to the role."

"If the Football Association go trying to find an Italian manager then it means it is possible for an Italian to manage England, and I think you will find he is the best candidate."

"If you are winning big titles you always have big stars in your team. Capello is one of the best managers you can find." - Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Capello has only limited English but Eriksson added: "That won't be a problem. It certainly wasn't for me as I spoke to him in Italian!"

"The choice of Capello as the English national team coach is a bad thing for all English coaches," - Raymond Domenech.

"It is going abroad to search for a coach that is not positive. England need a coach who has the same mentality as the players."

“I would prefer not to speak about it. The trophies he has won speaks for itself and with the luck that he has he could win there also” - Antonio Cassano.

“It is true that he has won with some big teams but he has also had a lot of luck.”

“Speaking to some of the Real players, they tell me they are much happier this year. Last season they were almost in depression because it is a problem to be trained by a Coach like that [Capello].”

"His choice is first and foremost a great honor for Italian football" - Arrigo Sacchi.

"The English have never been too kind with us. And he will certainly be an excellent selector, even though it will be the first time for him with a national team: he knows the players well and knows which ones to pick."

"His knowledge and character are among the best in the world," he concluded.

"There's a tremendous pressure on the English coach, which Fabio will understand when he's two minutes into the job," - Sir Alex Ferguson.

"It's not going to be an easy job. There's a lot of work to do with the England team to get them to the level everyone expects, so I hope he'll get the support he needs."

"But what Fabio has got is experience. I've spoken for a long time about the necessity of a national team manager to be experienced and to have a good CV and a presence and be the right age. Fabio Capello has all those things."

"He will definitely command the respect of the players."

"Fabio's English is okay," added Ferguson.

"I've never had any problem speaking to him. I was reading about the problem with the language Rafael Benitez had when he came to Liverpool."

"But maybe Rafa couldn't speak English, whereas Fabio can. That's a big advantage."

"I'm sad, to be honest. I'm a proud English manager and I would have loved an Englishman to have been in charge" - Steve Coppell, Reading manager.

"You look at his CV and I must admit it is enticing. He is everything that you would want an England manager to be but, as an Englishman, how would you like an Italian coming in taking your job?"

"You look at the list of contenders and what he has done ticks all the boxes but I just wish he was English."

"We have now created a situation where it is very hard for an English manager to get to the top of the tree."

"The only way realistically now for an English manager to get a job in the Premier League is if he takes a team up there himself."

"Certainly, none of the elite half of the table are going to appoint an English manager."

"I don't think I will ever get an elite job myself if I'm honest. The big teams will now always go for continental managers with European experience."

"I am really not very happy about this" - Evelina Tortul, Capello's mother.

"The newspapers and the television are going to be on his back all the time now, and talk badly about everything he does - whether it is good or bad. My peaceful days are over."

"The problem with the media is that it is fine when you are winning, but when you lose they cut your throat," she added. "I'm his mother, so that is going to make me unhappy."

MALAYSIA ELECTIONS NEXT YEAR

Have you registered as a voter? The deadline as I heard is on the 31st of December, 2007.

REGISTRATION OF ELECTORS

Those who had registered can check their own information online here.

This is my first chance to vote in the elections for the first time as I have reached the eligible age.

CONSOLE WAR AND BANNED GAMES

News report from Channelnewsasia.com reported that PS3 has finally overtake Wii in November with price cut and stronger line-up of games. Sony sold 183,217 PS3s in Japan in the four weeks to November 25, while Nintendo sold 159,193 Wii consoles, according to magazine publisher Enterbrain. US software giant Microsoft meanwhile sold 35,065 Xbox 360s as it continued to struggle on its rivals' home turf, the survey showed.

Sony cut the price of the standard PS3 by 10 percent in October and launched a new slimmed down version, ratcheting up the competition with its rivals ahead of the crucial year-end sales period.

Nintendo has been enjoying strong demand for the Wii, which earlier this year was outselling the PS3 several times over in Japan.

The PS3's fortunes also now appear to be improving in North America where Sony recently reported a more than three-fold rise in sales in the crucial Thanksgiving holiday week.

While Sony put the emphasis on chip power and ultra-realistic graphics for the latest addition to the PlayStation series, Nintendo opted to develop a cheaper, easy-to-use console that would appeal to a wider audience.

Some analysts argue that the Wii has carved out a new market, so Nintendo and Sony are no longer competing head-to-head in home video game consoles.

They said the softer Wii sales may also be the result of supply shortages rather than weaker demand.

The success of the PS3 is considered vital to a revival at Sony, which under its first foreign boss Howard Stringer has been undergoing a major overhaul.

On the other news, Singapore has banned the sale of an Xbox video game that features an intimate scene between two female characters.

The "Mass Effect" game, a futuristic space adventure, contains "a scene of lesbian intimacy... as such the game has been disallowed," the deputy director of the Board of Film Censors said in the statement.

Earlier this year the city-state banned two other video games, "God of War II" for nudity and "The Darkness" for excessive violence and religiously offensive expletives, the statement said.

FOOTBALL: LIVERPOOL, MADRID, MILAN AND BARCA

Liverpool won with 4 goals to secure a place in the Champions League knockout stages as they finished second in the group. Good for them and Benitez especially with the link with Klinsmann as the new coach for the past few days. Benitez finally has his European touch back. As for Madrid, I am glad that Baptista is given the chance ahead of Guti. I have always been a fan of The Beast and have always feel that he was the most consistent player apart from Figo before he was loaned to Arsenal. He is never given much opportunities to prove himself and I am glad he delivers now that he is given that chance.

As for the link of Mourinho to Milan, it is definitely something extremely shocking to me. People said Mourinho rejected the English coach job because he is waiting for the Milan job. Well, Carlo Ancelotti is like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, which means they are the untouchables of their respective clubs. I cannot imagine Milan without Ancelotti. There is also rumours about Mourinho linked with Inter. Inter have been quite consistent these past two seasons after the scandals in Serie A so I will not be expecting the coach to be changed anytime soon. There are talks ongoing that if Roberto Donadoni doesn't perform well at Euro 2008, Ancelotti could take over the Italian national coach post. However, if they perform well, Ancelotti could take over at Barcelona instead. Frank Rijkaard is under tremendous pressure too to deliver the trophies this season.

Barcelona welcome back Samuel Eto'o and this is where the real fight begins. People should leave Ronaldinho alone. I think he is doing pretty fine this season. The link of him to Milan is also something as irritating as Kaka to Real Madrid. Milan have enough Brazilians in their squad already. They should have younger players to overhaul their extremely ageing squad. They are not getting younger any day and Milan expect to count on them forever? Since Kaka, perhaps the most potential young player is the much talked about Alexandre Pato. Everyone said he is the next best thing after Robinho and Messi. We shall be able to witness his football soon after January next year.

FOOTBALL: CAPELLO FOR ENGLAND?

It is not confirmed yet but Lippi, O'Neill and Klinsmann are other potential candidates.

It is so funny that everyone is saying that England's coach must be English, especially this is from someone like Wenger. He was the one who fought so hard for the best players to play for the club in the EPL and not let nationality to limit quality. Now, why you can't have the best coach for the country and nationality becomes the crucial matter here? What is the difference? If you talk about national pride, is the EPL not the English pride as well? I just don't get it.

Wenger said, ""You are very nationalistic; you want the English national team to do well. I believe that you have to choose an Englishman who represents the country."

"I do not understand your logic because you want people to represent the national qualities. Why do you go for a foreign guy?"

"It is like you go to war and you say 'now we choose a general from Portugal or a general from Italy to lead our army'. Would that idea cross your mind? Never."

"You have [Harry] Redknapp, [Alan] Curbishley, [Steve] Coppell, [Gareth] Southgate, [Stuart] Pearce, [Sam] Allardyce - you have plenty, but you do not rate them enough. Give them a chance."

"The national team does not play with a Portuguese player or an Italian player so why should suddenly the leader just be foreign? The club is open to the world and the national team is representing the country."

The last person on earth I want to hear such comment is not from a man who has only 1 English player in the whole club. Go to war? Adolf Hitler was Austrian and he became a German leader. Arnold Schwarzenegger is the mayor of California. Alfredo di Stefano is an Argentinian but he played for Argentina, Colombia and Spain. Deco is a Brazilian but he plays for Portugal. Gonzalo Higuaín was born in France but he plays for Argentina.

I also don't understand the hype why Mourinho is seemed like the favourite for the job because he coached Chelsea so he knows the English game better. So what? There are tonnes of English ex-coaches who coached in England and were just as bad. Mourinho is an amateur when you compare his records against Capello. I don't understand why people argue that Capello is not fit because he has never coach a country team. What about McClaren? What about Mourinho? Why nobody say so for them? Lame excuse.

Many people are just jealous that Capello is in the hot seat to become the English coach.

The stupid Mijatovic said "“For me, Capello is not an international boss."

"His ideal habitat is at a club and if it’s a big club, so much the better. He needs a battle every day.”

Well, who cares anyway since Predrag Mijatović and Ramón Calderón always give stupid comments which does not make sense and buy countless players at the same position for the club and sell players at positions which has not much to cover. Great football logic.

Many said England will play boring defensive football if Capello is going to be the coach. Well, let me tell you that Capello comes with a package. What England needs now is not just someone who can give you results as the problem is not so simple. They need someone to heal their fighting spirit, teamwork and someone who is powerful enough to bench anybody he wants, including the superstars. Many forgot that he came to Real Madrid the second time to heal a club which had totally lost the confidence, the fighting spirit, the desire to win and teamwork. Almost four suffering, difficult trophiless years and fans like me already lost any faith that any coach that comes by will be able to solve the problem. For me, that La Liga win was not the biggest contribution that Capello did. His contribution was to heal the team spirit so they believe in themselves again.

Boring and defensive football? You have to give him time. Real Madrid took almost 1 season to gel and play beautiful football again. The last stretch of the last season's games were the most exciting matches I had ever watched since Vicente del Bosque was fired. Real Madrid for once after almost four years were invincible and impossible to lose and played one of the most exciting high scoring, no defence football that was so amazing to watch. That was Capello's greatest achievement and he delivered in 1 season. What Schuster inherited now is a healed team, a much easier job of a team finally coming out of crisis after wandering in the wilderness for almost four years. They said they sacked Capello because he was a defensive coach and Schuster will play more entertaining football. To me, Schuster is playing an even more boring low scoring football now. ZZZZZZZZZZZ

Mourinho's case was the same in Chelsea. What he inherited was Claudio Ranieri's team which is almost completed built to get ready to win trophies. He had a more easier life, just like Schuster now. Capello's second greatest achievement was to get Ronaldo out of the club. Ronaldo to me is already done and sacrificed many strikers' careers in Real Madrid. Raul, Morientes, Owen and Portillo were just some of the players who were forced to play behind him to deliver him assists. No coach on the planet dares to sack Ronaldo because he was the El Phenomenon. To me, Ronaldo is slow, losing passion, standing alone at the front just waiting for the ball and extremely lazy as well as showing no interest. I salute Capello for the capability to get him out. It was the best decision he ever done in Madrid. As for Beckham, I would say Capello was wrong but later admitted his mistake, which pushed Beckham to play one of his best footballs in his career.

Finally, on language barrier. Guus Hiddink is a Dutch and I doubt he can speak Korean or Russian. Maybe English he can when coaching Australia. Let Capello try to be an international coach. England has nothing to lose. I feel that he could bring the confidence, teamwork, fighting spirit and the winning formula back. I may be wrong but Capello has a record of going to clubs in crisis and pulling them out in the most difficult situations. Let's sit back and watch if he is appointed as England's coach.