WHERE HAVE ALL THE CAPTAIN MARVELS GONE?
English football has been graced by a host of iconic skippers but the importance of the role has diminished in the modern game
Petr CeCh passed the captain’s armband to Aaron ramsey who wore it for a while then handed it to Mesut Ozil. Up in the emirates Stadium stands, Frank McLintock scratched his head and wondered what had become of this prestigious office.
In Azerbaijan, four days later, Nacho Monreal led out Arsenal against Qarabag and in the second half it was Danny Welbeck.
Against Fulham, on Sunday, Granit Xhaka had the honour. Six different players in three games. the official club captain Laurent Koscielny is injured.
‘It seems anybody can take it — like it’s a present,’ said McLintock. ‘For me, the great teams always had great captains. I don’t know if that was just a British thing. Bobby Moore, Bryan robson, Danny Blanchflower... not all the same style but all leaders.
‘We’ll probably never see these types again. As long as they’re good players. Virgil van Dijk doesn’t shout like tommy Smith but he’s a good player.’
McLintock, 78, belongs in company with great club captains of the past — with Billy Bremner, roy Keane and tony Adams. At Arsenal, manager Bertie Mee wanted the Glaswegian to be the first voice his players heard at halftime. trailing 3-1 to Anderlecht after the first leg of the Fairs Cup final in 1970, McLintock’s passionate speech inspired a fightback which clinched the trophy at highbury and launched them towards the Double a year later.
In the FA Cup at Manchester City, he once conjured magic from Charlie George by inventing a tale about how City’s flamboyant assistant manager Malcolm Allison really didn’t rate him.
‘I told him Mal thought he was a bottler, a typical Cockney, all mouth and no trousers,’ said McLintock. ‘I had to defuse it afterwards.
‘Charlie scored twice and gave him a right mouthful. Poor Mal had no idea what was going on.’
Arsenal’s captaincy has been restless since Patrick Vieira’s exit in 2005. Manager Arsene Wenger seemed to use the role as a device to stop players leaving but it not work with thierry henry, Cesc Fabregas or robin van Persie any more than it convinced William Gallas to embrace responsibility.
Others in the upper echelons of the Premier League appear equally unsure what to do with the role.
At Manchester United, Jose Mourinho stripped Paul Pogba of the vice- captaincy and captain Antonio Valencia hit the ‘ like’ button on a social media message calling for his manager to be fired.
Michael Carrick was named captain when Wayne rooney left
but was mostly injured and
Valencia, who took over, is not always in the team. Others have also led out the team, including Ashley Young and Chris Smalling. A strong captain might have helped Mourinho.
At Chelsea, where John Terry was captain for years, Cesar Azpilicueta has had the armband because Gary Cahill is out of favour but there is a suspicion the job is Eden Hazard’s if he commits to a new contract.
Manager Maurizio Sarri swerves the question and says he must first talk to the board and the players about his plans — hardly a ringing endorsement for Azpilicueta.
‘I don’t think it matters any more,’ said Terry Butcher, former captain of Ipswich, Rangers and England. ‘It doesn’t have the same aura. The higher you go, the less the captain plays a role. There are exceptions, you see it more in the lower leagues, but it’s lost some of its sparkle.
‘It’s generally given to the best player and the best player is not the best leader. That’s diluting the role. Ultimately, the team can run out in any order and decide among themselves who does the toss.
‘Maybe there are not enough leaders. People used to point fingers and get you going. Bryan Robson would have a go at me on a regular basis and it sharpened me up. I don’t see it in the Premier League. Players make a mistake and no- one’s shouting, driving people. They walk away.
‘Maybe they think they’ll still play next week. We’ve lost a lot of things but you have to say the standard has improved enormously.”
Glenn Hoddle wanted Alan Shearer as his England captain. He wanted the best player leading the team just as Diego Maradona led out Argentina. This season, Lionel Messi is the captain of Barcelona.
Gareth Southgate, the current England boss, was a thoughtful captain as a player and he took time before opting for Harry Kane.
The lionhearted leader that blood- soaked Butcher came to embody was a British creation since eroded by the internationalism of the Premier League and the demand from coaches for more refined footballers.
Different cultures and sports science have meant fewer paintballing expeditions and booze-ups to organise. Increasingly, there are headphones and iPads or agents and entourages for company rather than a band of brothers.
There may be tickets to organise, fines to administer and bonuses to discuss but player-liaison officers and translators help new signings settle and managers can now lean on armies of support staff.
In the no-excuses environment of modern elite football, players are spared all distractions. Yet at the same time the cult of the manager has flourished here.
The Premier League attracts the world’s best coaches and most want to take complete control. If they are to fail they want to fail on their terms. Not yielding to accommodate a cult hero in an armband.
Personality captains such as Troy Deeney and Mark Noble have fought to regain their places at Watford and West Ham respectively.
At the very top, bigger squads and regular rotation undermines the notion of one captain. Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany and Jordan Henderson of Liverpool defy the trend better than most but are not always in the team.
Should it be the goalkeeper? Hugo Lloris is close to his manager and respected by team-mates despite his recent drink- drive offence. And always in the team.
Onfield leadership remains vital, according to Steve Perryman, a former Tottenham captain now an associate director at Milton Keynes Dons.
‘Most important for me is one person passing information to another,’ said Perryman. ‘Something my brother said when I was 14 has stuck with me and that’s to always give your opinion on what they should do on the ball. Not because you’re better or he’s a poor player but because he has the problem of the ball.
‘It was great advice. It’s a matter of communication. No course ever told me what players should be saying to each other. We learned from older pros who saw it as their job to pass on information.
‘You need a certain stature at the club to carry it off. I wouldn’t do it at 17 in the Tottenham team but at 27 if you don’t have an opinion then why not? Players need information and whose job is it on the field? The manager can’t run out there. There has to be a captain.
‘You are losing points if you don’t have a captain in full control of what the manager is thinking. The way to get that is by communication off the field between the captain and the manager. That’s the relationship I had with Terry Neill and Keith Burkinshaw.’
Dean Smith was a captain in every club where he played. At the age of 19, Kenny Hibbert asked him to lead out a Walsall team which included seasoned professionals such as Derek Statham, Tony Grealish and Kevin MacDonald.
‘I didn’t quite know why he was making me captain but sometimes other people can see things you don’t know are there,’ said Smith, who produced his dissertation on captaincy for his UEFA Pro Licence.
As Brentford boss, since John Egan was sold to Sheffield United in the summer, he has developed his findings and adopted a ‘leadership team’ with a rolling captaincy system rather than one skipper.
‘By naming a single captain you overlook people who don’t get the opportunity to thrive on responsibility,’ said Smith. ‘Not all but most players want responsibility. By giving them the armband we’re asking them, “Go on then, can you be the leader today?” ’
Statistics show Brentford players run more and run harder with the armband than without it.
‘It shows they take it seriously,’ said Smith. ‘It’s not a gimmick. We have a team huddle and the captain on the day is the one who talks. I think they’re enjoying it.’
Other managers have tried to pick his brains, realising the art of captaincy is important and has to be preserved as the game changes.
Perhaps manager Unai Emery is in the process of searching for his McLintock as the armband circulates in the Arsenal dressing room. Perhaps there is sense behind the restlessness.
‘Modern society creates followers not leaders,’ Smith added. ‘We are told what to do and how to do it. You don’t see people stepping forward with their chest out saying, “I want to learn”.
‘We have to encourage them and give them opportunities. The leader’s job is to create more leaders.
‘We can still produce John Terrys, Terry Butchers and Tony Adamses. I have two 20-year-old centre backs, Ezri Konsa and Chris Mepham and they could both become such a figurehead. It’s up to us to give them that responsibility.”