Going back to the England side, I'm wondering whether the FA have been taking the right approach when it comes to the manager. I'm not doubting Capello's managerial credentials for a second, however international management is an entirely different kettle of fish entirely from club management, and I'm not sure the answer to England's woes is simply scouring the world for a top club manager and then paying him huge sums of money for the privelidge of managing England.
I've been re-reading the first half of the thread, and Uppercut's posts about luck suddenly struck a chord with me.
I'd say post WW2, there's been 5 genuinely great European sides: Hungary from roughly 1952-56, Holland 1974-78, West Germany 1970-1976, France 2000 and the current Spanish side. I'll ignore the French side for just now, but the one thing the rest of the sides have in common is that they're all based around an extremely successful club core: Hungary were based on Honved, Holland on Ajax (European Cup winners 1971-73), West Germany on Bayern Munich (European Cup winners 1974-76) and Spain on Barcelona (who under Guardiola are IMO the finest club side I've seen in my lifetime). I might be a bit premature with my praise for the Spanish, as I feel they've yet to reach their potential (which is a frightening prospect), but all 4 were genuinely great because their players were all familiar with each other and the system they were expected to play, which is why they were relentlessly successful over a long period of time. South Korea in 2002 provided another example of this approach - the K-League finished early, which gave Hiddink 3 months to mould his side to play how he wanted. The result? A semi-final on home soil.
France 2000 are the exception which proves the rule, as that side contained a selection of the greatest players of their generation playing at close to their peak. I don't include the France 98 side when looking at the French, because the side which won Euro 2000 was vastly different, and vastly superior, to the side which won the World Cup in 1998. Talented players, and familiarity with system and team-mates seems to be the difference between a great side, and merely a good side, such as Italy 2006 or Germany in 1996.
Incidentally, were it not for the outbreak of the Balkan War, I'd have backed the Yugoslavia side of the early 90s to have been up there with any of the aforementioned teams - the performances of Red Star Belgrade in 1990/91, and Croatia in 1998 sadly gave us only a brief glimpse of what might have been possible.
Outwith the genuine great sides, what seems to be needed to win tournaments is a group of players who click at the same time, and a lot of luck at opportune moments, whether that luck involves a freak goal in a quarter final against strong opposition (Brazil 2002), the opposition's star player having a fit pre-final (France 1998) or the team who qualified top of your group getting chucked out due to civil war (Denmark 1992). The manager doesn't control either of these variables.
So how does that tie in with England in 2010? Like I said, I think the FA are getting their priorities slightly wrong when looking for a manager. Club success, although indicative of a good manager, won't necessarily translate to international success. At a club, you choose your players, you choose your system, and you work with the players intensively 7 days a week to implement your vision: if players aren't up for it, you can sell them and replace them with players with the quality needed. At international level, you can't do this, you can only piss with the **** you've been given. Not only that, but you can't do any sort of intensive work on implementing a system - with the exception of a finals tournament, you only get your players together for a couple of days at a time, 4 or 5 times a season.
Looking at international management from a purely Scottish perspective, I would go as far as to say that man-management skills are more important in an international manager than the skillset needed for club management. We tried the "hire a foreign coach with an impressive management CV" approach with Bertie Vogts, and his reign was largely disastrous (not entirely of his own making, given what he was left by Craig Brown). We then appointed Walter Smith, a manager with reknowned man-management skills (up here anyway), and results instantly improved. They were then sustained by Alex McLeish, another manager with good man-management skills, to the point where we only just failed to make it out of a qualifying group with the 2 previous World Cup finalists (beating France twice), before hiring George Burley, who fell out with pretty much every Rangers player, split the camp, and led the same group of players who'd performed so admirably under Smith/McLeish to ignomity in the weakest of the groups, before getting thrashed by Wales.
Diego Maradona's an interesting manager to look at in this regard: I don't think his appointment is as bat**** crazy as it first appears. The one thing he most definitely commanded among his players was respect, and you could see the unity of the squad and how much he had the players pulling in the same direction when they scored - Tevez's goal celebration against Mexico gave that much away. Where Maradona was found lacking was on the tactical side of things - Jonas Guttierez as a right back, or lining up against Germany with a central midfield that essentially consisted of Javier Mascherano aren't the decisions of a manager who knows what he's doing tactically, regardless of how great his man-management skills are.
So, to conclude this rather long-winded piece, now that the dust has settled, perhaps England have appointed the wrong man, and are using the wrong methods with which to select their manager. Certainly, given what an international manager needs to succeed - either the core of the side to be familiar at club level, a cast of great players, or great man-management skills - Capello lacks all 3, and I'm not sure that the FA can really justify spending £6m a season on him - money which could 240,000 coaches at £25k a year to go into schools and ensure that kids are properly coached in the basics. If the FA want to win a World Cup, I know what the better use of £6m a year is - it's certainly not employing a manager who is unproven at international level.
with this post I guess.