Greg Chappell and Fabio Capello – Twin Tower Saga

Background: 

The hunting begins!

1.  England did not qualify for Euro 2008 and India needed a high profile coach after disappointing results against Pakistan and Australia.
2. In England, numerous profiles such as Luis Felipe Scolari, Jose Mourinho, Frank Rijkaard and Mark Hughes are analyzed but Fabio Capello is bought in to deliver the World Cup. 
3. In India, profiles such as Desmond Haynes, Tom Moody, Amarnath, Sandeep Patil and John Emburey were analyzed but finally it was Greg Chappell. 

Objective:

To win the next world cup, no matter what the cost is.

Features:

Fabio Capello: Italian, Consistent, Flamboyant, Has showed his worth at very high levels,  consistently managed top clubs, Does not give a shit about reputation no matter what (Ex:. His bust up with Ronaldo, Beckham, Del Piero etc), Admires and believes in youngsters, very highly paid (No England coach has ever been paid so much before).

Greg Chappell: Australian, Cunning, Provocative, Known for joining the World Series Cricket breaking away from Australia, Underarm controversy, likes, identifies and promotes youngsters, the term reputation has no meaning in his dictionary as well and highly paid.

Summary:

Fabio Capello: He brought in consistency into the England team and gives the arm band to John Terry though many pundits wanted Steven Gerrard to have the arm band. Capello went on to build a team around a strong backbone (Terry, Ferdinand, Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney). Tried a variety of formations and gave numerous chances to youngsters such as Walcott, Phillips, Dawson, Gibbs, Agbonlahor, Lennon and followed them closely during their premier league matches. He made sure England finished at the top of the qualifying group with the most number of goals and finally realized that he was short of world class defenders and holding players. He somehow convinced Jamie Carragher(another mistake of having him) but failed to pull in Paul Scholes (another mistake of ‘not’ having him). Also just before the selection dilemma, he had to do things against his own principles – Takes injured players to the world cup (Ex: Barry, King(Slightly unfit)), study the bed time stories of John Terry and fails to identify a good striker for partnering Rooney. Gerrard is named the captain after Rio gets injured but is asked to play in the left of the midfield which goes out to be the biggest ever mistake in the world cup. Alas, no one gets the ball to Rooney and England fail. The golden quartet – Terry, Gerrard, Lampard and Rooney fail big time.

Greg Chappell: He knew that the backbone of the team was Sachin, Sourav, Dravid, Zaheer, Harbhajan, Yuvraj and Dhoni. He sticks with Sourav as the captain, though every night in his dream he sees himself firing Sourav Ganguly. Yes, reputation does not count and Sourav is stripped one fine day. Dravid is new the captain. Irfan Pathan, Munaf, Raina, RP Singh, Chawla, and Uthappa are identified analyzed and a strong 15 men squad is selected for the world cup. India slams Sri Lanka a dozen times before stepping onto the WC. Goes into the world cup 2007 possibly considered the strongest team in the Indian history and also takes Dada along. Fails to get past the first round and loses to even teams such as Bangladesh. The biggest mistake Chappell made was to play Tendulkar as a second down batsman in the 50 over format and that too in the world cup. India’s golden generation fails again. Dravid and Co., sink the ship together and alas, he is fired.

Key Findings:

1. Steven Gerrard and Sachin Tendulkar were played at different positions which really did not at all suit them.
2. Did continue relying on oldies such as Jamie Carragher and Sourav Ganguly. Both these guys played a crucial role in their team’s losses.
3. England could never get past teams such as Algeria and India could not get past teams such as Bangladesh.
4. Both the teams’ collective salary levels are the highest in the world and their coaches were the highest paid.
5. IPL and EPL are considered to be the best leagues though there was no IPL during 2007. But both suck.
6. Greg Chappell was screwed royally when he went in public against Sachin and Capello is getting royally screwed for playing Gerrard on the left.
7. Both Terry and Dada would have been happy after the result as they were not the captains to take the blame and both failed miserably.Both went publicly in a mild manner against their coaches.
8. In both the teams, the so called golden generation fail miserably, pathetically and sadistically.

Alas, this is what you call coincidence.