Foreign coaching · Yellow Fever Nga Wana Kowhai · Supporters of the Wellington Phoenix

Some interesting points made by Martin Samuel of the Times on Fabio Capello in relation to foreign coaching. I'm not sure how much it applies to New Zealand given our status but it does reinforce in my mind that we should be importing foreign coaching methods, but not necessarily foreign coaches. We want a group of well trained and expert coaches that have played here and will stick around to pass the information on rather than coaching mercernaries, if we want the game to improve long term. At the same time maybe we could do with a short term fix...a shot in the arm.

"In essence, although nothing in the Fifa rulebook forbids a foreign appointment, English football is cheating. Clubs are bottom-line businesses and have no boundaries, but national football aspires to greater meaning, pitting the wit of one country against another to demonstrate the strength of its game. Now, if England win the 2010 World Cup it will be as much Italy's victory: Italian coaching, Italian knowhow, Italian ideals. By appointing Capello, instead of solving a problem, English football seeks a short-cut to the answer. Take two children and a tough mathematics question: 427,649 x 221,952. Give one a pen and a piece of paper and the other a calculator. The machine has it cracked before the other child has the first line of calculations written, but given time, who will be better at arithmetic? Capello is England's calculator; he gives us an answer we cannot fathom on our own."

Normo's coming home