Wayne Rooney Is England Captain

He is set to infect the national team from an even more prominent role from now on.

Outside of royalty, no position so unimportant has ever held so much media attention as England captain.

I don't think he's a good choice as captain, but neither is anyone else in the team either.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Outside of royalty, no position so unimportant has ever held so much media attention as England captain.

It depends on what sort of captain you have really. Sometimes it's just someone who goes up and takes the little pennant thing before the game, sometimes they actually make a difference in terms of motivation and settling disputes etc..

Are you implying that it matters less for International level than club level, or do you think both are meaningless?

Zzonked wrote:I don't think he's a good choice as captain, but neither is anyone else in the team either.

ResurrectionRooney wrote:Outside of royalty, no position so unimportant has ever held so much media attention as England captain.

It depends on what sort of captain you have really. Sometimes it's just someone who goes up and takes the little pennant thing before the game, sometimes they actually make a difference in terms of motivation and settling disputes etc..

Are you implying that it matters less for International level than club level, or do you think both are meaningless?

It's almost completely meaningless at any level. There are so many factors which go into how strong a team is, how good each individual player is, how good the manager is, how much luck the team gets on the day, how well the players get on with each other, how good the opposition are, how well suited the opposition are to counter your strengths, how good their manager is, how well the weather conditions suit the team, etc., one guy in the team getting an armband and a title, but no real authority and having no real change in behaviour, is far less important than any of that. In our most successful seasons in recent years we didn't even have a proper captain, the armband rotated between 4 or 5 players.

Roy pulling a page from Jurgie's book. Giving the armband to the hot head on the team. Worked out decently enough for us considering the more obvious options available.

I think it's a bigger sham that Fabian Delph has been called in. Yikes.

Like I said, it definitely can have no impact but I don't agree that it is completely meaningless.

City had Tevez as captain for a season and he didn't even speak English properly so obviously he did nothing.

On the other hand, Kompany does quite a lot as captain now. You can see him motivating players before/during/after the game on the tunnel cam, organizing and settling disputes. In the video I posted a while ago Balotelli and Kolarov were having a dispute and he comes over and pulls Balotelli away and settles him down.

Zzonked wrote:Like I said, it definitely can have no impact but I don't agree that it is completely meaningless.

City had Tevez as captain for a season and he didn't even speak English properly so obviously he did nothing.

On the other hand, Kompany does quite a lot as captain now. You can see him motivating players before/during/after the game on the tunnel cam, organizing and settling disputes. In the video I posted a while ago Balotelli and Kolarov were having a dispute and he comes over and pulls Balotelli away and settles him down.

You think he wouldn't do that if he didn't have an armband on?

I don't know, but it does give more authority to his actions. If another player did it they may just be being perceived as taking sides in the argument rather than doing it for the team and further the scuffle.

Zzonked wrote:I don't know, but it does give more authority to his actions. If another player did it they may just be being perceived as taking sides in the argument rather than doing it for the team and further the scuffle.

I agree. I feel like it might be different for Man United, since they really haven't had a permanent captain who plays week in, week out for years.

I agree with the captains role being completely overblown at international level, Im pretty sure England is one of the few countries that puts such a huge emphasis on the armband. I think its probably a good decision though, theres no other real stand out candidates and Roy might as well keep his best player on side

Zzonked wrote:I don't know, but it does give more authority to his actions. If another player did it they may just be being perceived as taking sides in the argument rather than doing it for the team and further the scuffle.

How does being named captain avoid that? He's still human, he still has his own interests, his own mates within the squad, people are still going to perceive him as taking sides.

Wayne's a great player, but he's no captain.