A Gentleman and a Scolari

The imminent announcement that Luiz Felipe Scolari will take over as England coach after the World Cup has left Curbs and his fellow English peers in the lurch. Although there is still a near 50% chance of his recruitment falling through (according to Betfair), the sudden spate of news reports are clearly the smoke amidst the fire.

Unlike fellow US-based blogger Chicago Addick, I never really felt Curbs had a genuine chance, but was simply being used as a pawn to appease those in the media clamouring for a English manager. Reasons range from the blindingly obvious (no experience of European football), to the somewhat more obscure (not slick enough with the media). Indeed with regard to the latter point, his ability to have given several interviews in recent weeks about the England job and without having said anything of great import nor depth was a little odd to say the least. On this occasion at least, silence would have been golden.

From my standpoint, those very qualities that have served Charlton so well under Curbs' stewardship are perhaps very different from those required to succeed at international level. His inherent conservativeness and preference for solid pros over primadonnas has been just fine for Charlton (until this season perhaps) but of little use when trying to explain to the biggest egos in the game how to conquer Brazil or France.

So where does that leave Curbs? In many ways he has been a victim of his own success. By turning Charlton into a solid midtable Premiership outfit, he has by definition limited the number of clubs he could join which would represent a clear 'step up.' This is particularly relevant given the biggest clubs in the country have achieved such success with foreign managers. In truth, it probably just leaves the likes of Spurs and Newcastle as clearly 'bigger' clubs, which naturally leaves one wondering if Curbs may soon be househunting in Northumbria in light of his implicit comments about it possibly being time to move on.

Indeed with Scolari likely to follow another foreigner at the England helm, and with none of the top six in today's Premiership managed by Englishmen, it has to be asked why we are not producing top-level coaches. I believe the last English manager to win the League title was none other than Howard Wilkinson at Leeds in 1992.

It is notable that none of the top three non-British coaches in the English game (Wenger, Mourinho, Benitez) had much of a playing career, if any. Instead each are highly intelligent self-made men who command respect from what they say and do, and not from their medal collection.

Judging from the barbed comments coming from some former players regarding the involvement of the likes of Sir Clive Woodward in their precious sport, it is clear that most of them would like to retain the 'old boys' network rather than dare to challenge their long-held views. One even dared to claim that appointing Scolari was a mistake because he didn't speak very good English, which suggests they haven't heard Curbs interviewed in a while.

I don't have any obvious answers to this question, but suspect part of it must lie in that old boys network that creates a self-reinforcing cycle via media pundits and their cronies. This need not necessarily be a bad thing except that English footballers are notoriously unintelligent generally. I recently came across Espen Baardsen (former Spurs/Watford goalkeeper) in a business context, and his new boss in the financial world explained that he knew it was time to leave football (he is only 28) when George Graham knocked his Financial Times out of his hands and accused him of reading a 'poof's paper.'

Unfortunately as Kevin Keegan found out, the classic English rabble-rousing style can only take you so far. Hence is it really any surprise that the FA are inclined again to seek a thoughtful foreign coach?