Fabio Capello's Very Bad Week

England's coach, Fabio Capello, has done almost nothing wrong since he took over the Three Lions after the 2006 World Cup. He led England on a dominating run through qualifying, and that led to a England being the top-ranked team in its group and a global notion (and national conviction) that his lads could actually win in South Africa this summer.

But then came this week ... and Fabio not only had to worry about former captain John Terry being hurt, he also had to clean after an amazingly bad decision designed to make himself a few more quid out of this World Cup.

To wit:

Capello decided (or maybe his agent did) that it would be a good idea to lend his name to a player rating system that would have graded his own players' performance in South Africa within a few hours of their matches.

When news of that knocked around England, the reaction was quick and harsh.

As AFP put it:

"Capello's employers at the Football Association quickly decided that their six-million-pound-a-year head coach could comfortably do without the extra income the project would have generated and, following a barrage of hostile media comment, the venture has been shelved until after the tournament."

Capello, you may recall reading here, is the highest-paid coach in the World Cup. (The salary noted in that post was correct at the time, coming before the pound lost value against the dollar.) That sum of 6 million pounds is now about $8.7 million, or still almost what Phil Jackson makes to coach the Los Angeles Lakers.

It's a lot of money.

So, backpedaling from the ridiculous player-rating scheme was pretty much required. Like, how many quid does a guy need out of one World Cup?

If you are an England fan, you hope you have just witnessed Fabio's one and only major gaffe in the run-up to the World Cup. Well, make that his second and last major gaffe, since he went back on his earlier decision and said the infamous English Wives and Girlfriends (WAGs) would have more access to players than he originally would allow.

Anyway, no more bad decisions, right Mario? England certainly hopes so. Read more!