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http://worldcup.uk.msn.com/LuizFelipeScolari/9 Reasons for Scolari1. The best way to inspire the next generation of English players is for England to win tournaments – Scolari is a proven winner.
2. Scolari does not have any sacred cows. If a player is not performing well he drops them – something Sven Goran Eriksson has failed to do with his team.
3. Big Phil is a motivator. He can deal with players’ egos and get the best out of them.
4. He has great tactical nous. His teams outwitted England twice in major tournaments: his Brazilian team beat Eriksson’s England with just ten men (Ronaldinho was sent off) in 2002, and Portugal outplayed England in Euro 2004 by pressing the opposition into mistakes and then keeping possession for long periods. An exhausted England barely made it to the penalty shoot-out and then flopped.
5. Big Phil’s teams are more likely to practise penalties than Eriksson’s. Scolari understands that many matches at the knock-out stages of tournaments go to penalties so he ensures his teams practise them. Sven appears to take a more relaxed approach to this issue, hoping for the best in a penalty shoot-out but not preparing properly for it (a crime also perpetrated by previous England managers).
6. The Football Association is showing how progressive it is by picking Big Phil: many other teams have foreign coaches and nationality simply is not an issue for them.
7. Many of the top club teams in England’s Premiership – Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, for example – have managers who are not English. Few people, including fans of those teams, raise this matter as some kind of problem for those clubs. Why should the national team be any different?
8. Most of the players in the current England squad have said that nationality is not a problem for them – they would just like the best man for the job.
9. No English manager has the right experience for the role. Who in their right mind would want Steve McClaren coaching the England team?
9 Reasons Against Scolari1. How can he get the players to do what we wants when he can’t speak their language well enough?
2. By appointing another foreigner the Football Association is limiting the ambitions of the best English coaches. What can people such as Steve McClaren, Alan Curbishley, Stuart Pearce, Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce aspire to if their own association will not appoint them?
3. If the idea behind the appointment is that to win the World Cup a team must be managed by someone who has already won it, what was the point of interviewing anyone else? This approach also suggests that England cannot win the 2006 World Cup as Sven Goran Eriksson has never coached a country to victory. Indeed, taking the argument to its logical conclusion would mean that only Portugal (Scolari’s current team) can win the World Cup this year – no other team is led by a coach who has previously won the tournament.
4. Scolari has coached teams that have very different players from England’s and play in a very different way. Can he adapt his approach to the English way of playing?
5. Big Phil tends to be rather outspoken – can he really cope with the English tabloids’ reaction to every word he utters?
6. An England coach needs to get on well with English club managers. He needs to be able to get the right players released by clubs for friendlies and needs to ensure players are not tired at the send of a long season just as a big tournament begins. Eriksson managed to get the English domestic season shortened by a week to give his players more time to rest before this year’s World Cup. Is Big Phil diplomatic enough to be able to achieve the same?
7. He cannot be trusted. Just a few days ago Scolari had claimed that he had not even been interviewed by the Football Association and that he had a gentleman’s agreement with the Portuguese authorities to not accept a new role until after the World Cup. Now it appears that he has been interviewed and is considering going back on his gentleman’s agreement.
8. If he is so good as a coach how come Portugal (the home team) lost to Greece (a bunch of journeymen) in the final of Euro 2004?
9. How hard can it be to win the World Cup when you are managing Brazil?
