swag said:
I don't even think it's Capello so much. Lippi was the same way in many respects when it came to acquiring and rotating in youth. It's really about the club itself.
Take a look at Capello at Roma before he took on the Juve job. The median age of his 2nd place squad there was around 24 or so -- a far cry from the typical 27-28 you find at Juve, Milan, etc.
I found an old post of mine where I review the median age of various Serie A teams, including Juve's over the years:
http://www.juventuz.com/forum/showthread.php?p=390844#post390844
Juve is going to have to lean towards more youth out of necessity -- breaking with our Serie A position and tradition.
Swag,
I agree with you that the big teams tend to have older players. This is natural given that winning is just more than having talented players, as it requires mental strenghts and ability to keep concentration throughout the long season.
Seasoned veterans who went through many of these aspects tend to have better physique and mental concentrations than younger ones breaking through as the season carries on.
However, even the big clubs, IMO, cannot solely rests on veterans buys to provide the extra depth every team needs. The matter of fact is that some established stars may not play upto expectation and ideally every team would like to have replacements on the bench. Economic way of providing these extra replacemen is obviously youth academy, and to some extent every single team except Inter and us rely on their youth policy out of necessity.
To give casual observation,
Man Utd: Giggs, Rossi, Scholes, Beckham, O,Shea, Bardsely, Neville
Barcelona; Iniesta, Puyol, Oleguer, Xavi, Messi, Valdes
Real: Casillas, Raul Bravo, Raul, Pavon, Guti, Morientes
Arsenal: Basically the whole squad.
Obviously, we are unique because Moggi, despite all his faults, was an outstanding evaluator of talents and we had a knack of finding young talented players from the lower principal teams such as Atalanta, Perugia, and co. Furthermore, we mainly used our youngsters as more of a bargaining chips.
So our uniqe competitive advantage from our competitors enabled us to form more mature and complete squads and the squad depth IMO was the key factor behind Lippi's success. (Not Fabio's since this idot cant see more than 15players)
Nonetheless, if you look at Fabio's track record, I just can't see a player he was able to raised and develop through the ranks.
At Milan, he already inherited phenomenal backline, and in truth, I think any manager with the back four of Tassotti/Panucci, Baresi, Costacourta/Galli, Maldini would have had their share of success. To give Capello some slack, anyone who would have experiented with that team would have been an idiot.
At Real, his policy was to buy. His success was built on buying likes of Carlos, Seedorf, Karenbeu, Savio, et al.
At Roma, he already inherited a squad of young players. However, the matter of fact is that these players were already went to critical phase of their careers and had more or less established themselves at the top level.
It was in Zeman's helm when Totti, Del Vecchio, Candela, Tommas, et al made their breakthrough. What Capello did was the bring in likes of Bati, Emerson, Samuel, Montella and give that extra quality upfront to already unspectacular but solid team.
To me, there is a clear pattern in Capello's track record. He finds team with a solid foundation and sees an element or two missing in these teams, and replaces them through transfer market. In all, Capello knows what team he wants and builds teams in his image. Good manager? I would say without a shadow of doubt yes. But he just simply isnt a very good coach IMO - only reinforced by his handling of Zlatan. In his career, Capello has only brought up one player through the critical phase of trying estalish oneself in the league and that is Raul IMO.
Of course this says nothing about Didier's ability to raise youngsters.
However, I think the biggest attributes the coach needs in raising youngsters is compassion - ability to understand the unstable inner physque of the kids.
Didier has always came across to me as a soft, and quite understanding man - contrary to the disciplinary nature of Capello.
And even if the sample is too small to judege comphrehensively about his ability as coach, I liked what he did with Monaco and at this stage of career, taking away the name values and reputation, I personally reckon Didier might just be better coach than Fabio.