O Captain, My Captain with Robin Williams inspiring his young proteges to find themselves

One of the enduring myths of football captaincy is a man given the mantle can change things. That might have been the case in the last century, and we can trot out Bobby Moore and Tony Adams to prove that point. But nationalism back then was much simpler, more monochromatic, the game working class and less yoked to big moneyed clubs. Someone like Moore might feel out of place in 21st century’s version of football with irate club managers going pugilistic with football federations over appearances and injuries to their multi-million pound investments. One of the traditional roles of a leader was to rein in destructive personal behaviours. That has been wrested away by father figure coaches, psychologists, and social media approbation.

Nowadays captaincies are given out as a sop to remain in the club or to gently prepare for an exit. With national sides more or less representative of the top four clubs, the phenomenon of 3 West Ham players providing the spine for the 1966 World Cup victory is an ember, dying and drenched in nostalgia. Respect is a working class virtue which does not add value to your wages and ties you down in a day and age when you see a Soton side hollowed out by the bigger clubs. Recent locker room coups have seen player activists exploiting antagonistic relationships to oust Andre Villas Boas or a Jose Mourinho or in the 2010 French side to put the stake into Raymond Domenech. Such biological self preservation acts cannot be mistaken for leadership.

Wayne Rooney arrives after Steven Gerrard, John Terry, and David Beckham’s stints as England’s captain. None of them could make the transition from club talisman to composed national leader. Gerrard was considered too aloof, Terry hedonistic and self centered, and Beckham, the ultimate metrosexual icon bending tradition. Rooney’s leadership claims seems to be rooted more in entropy by passionately expressing frustration by becoming redder in hue, bulging neck veins, or launching the F bomb on team mates and the referees. The result is not a crystallization, more an amorphous “headless chicken running around” that is counterproductive. Can one see a quiet pep talk or an arm over a shoulder? More deeply, he seems to have played the mercenary game better than the actual game. Threatening to leave now twice and twisting Sir Alex’s arm has yielded dividends to the tune of £300,000 per week. Not a bad payoff for someone willing to lose respect and ruthlessly rip up personal relationships.

All this is pap when it has not made a whit of difference who England instals as the captain with the realization that as many coaching changes have been made with as little to show for it. Steve McLaren, Fabio Capello, and now Roy Hodgson. You can put lipstick on a pig.