Lippi fires warning to Capello
Marcello Lippi tells Fabio Capello he must learn English to succeed
Tuesday, 18, Dec 2007 04:16
Marcelo Lippi believes Fabio Capello faces an "impossible" task if he tries to coach the England national team without speaking the language.
The former Italy manager, who won the World Cup last summer, revealed he has turned down job offers from these shores before because he cannot speak English.
Capello struggled through only two lines of written text at his inaugural press conference in London yesterday before resorting to speaking Italian through an interpreter.
And Lippi claims his countryman must stick to his promise of learning the language within six weeks if he is to get his point across to the England players at their first meeting with the new manager in February.
"The fact that I don't speak English is one of the reasons why I have turned down three or four proposals in the last two years that have arrived from the English Premier League," Lippi told Sky Italia.
"I have always said that a coach must transmit to his players everything that goes through his heart and head.
"And in order to do so he can't be talking and then asking the interpreter to translate - it's impossible."
Capello's first task as England manager will be to build a side capable of impressing what could be a sceptical home crowd in a friendly against Switzerland on February 6th.
And Lippi said the main challenge facing the former AC Milan and Real Madrid supremo would be to "make [the England] team become a team, something which in recent years it hasn't felt like".
"The national team is not just the selection of the best players of the country," he continued.
"In order to make a team you may also need to drop an important player that perhaps is not on the same wavelength as the others."