Today I'm going back 14 years to 2008 and England's International Friendly against the Schweizer Nati or Rossocrociati (the Red Crosses), otherwise known as Switzerland to you and me. The game was played at Wembley Stadium in front of a full house numbering 86,857 fans.
The programme cover star is, of course, Fabio Capello who was taking charge of the England national side for the first time in this particular game. Capello was successful as a player chiefly representing Juventus and Italy where he won 32 international caps scoring 8 goals. Between 2001 and 20212 England looked abroad to foreign coaches for the first time to try to bring the success that they craved and we went from Sven-Goran Eriksen, through Steve McLaren (did you ever her him being interview in English with his fabulous Dutch accent?) to Fabio Capello before the experiment was abandoned and England returned to the domestic recruitment model once again. Capello came to England on a four and a half year contract with an annual salary rumoured to be £6 Million per year. There was much optimism surrounding his appointment at the time and he was widely regarded as being the best available with an impressive trophy haul of one Champions League and seven Italian Serie A titles gained whilst managing AC Milan, Roma and Juventus plus 2 La Liga titles in Spain with Real Madrid.
England's match immediately prior to this one had been a shattering 2-3 Wembley defeat by Croatia that cost them a place at the 2008 European Championships and also cost "the wally with the brolly" Steve McLaren his job. Capello responded to his new assignment with something of a new broom as out went David Beckham, Sol Campbell and goalkeeper Paul Robinson. They made a nervous start to the game but gradually grew into things and five minutes before half time took a deserved lead when Jermaine Jenas swept home his first goal for England following good work by Joe Cole. Sadly, Switzerland equalised in the 58th minute with a well taken goal from debutante Eran Derdiyok but England were not to be denied however and just three minutes later the lead was restored. A good flick on by Peter Crouch to Steven Gerrard was squared for substitute Shaun Wright-Phillips who really couldn't miss. It was a solid start to Capello's reign but it was clear for all to see that there was a lot of work for the new manager to get his teeth into.
CRB Match No. 1607
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