Captain Marvel

What makes a good captain? And who should be chosen as the captain of a club? According to the computer game of Football Manager, a good captain is someone who has a high influence attribute. But that alone is not enough. There are many factors to be considered. A captain should be one of the best players at a club in terms of footballing ability. A captain should be well respected by his teammates. And the most important thing is a captain should be able to play week in week out and is not injury prone.

There are two clear examples of good captains with different characteristics. First type of captain is the Roy Keane’s type. This type is the ones who are very vocal in their leadership. They show their passion in leading the team by shouting and commanding throughout the 90 minutes. These can spur other players to follow his lead on the pitch and perform better when things are not going well. Second type of captain is the Javier Zanetti’s type. Soft spoken but not less confidence. This type is the ones who lead by examples. Other players tend to look to them for inspirations. These type of players are one of the best at their respective clubs, if not, the best. Other examples of this type are Philip Lahm and Steven Gerrard.   

Apart from those two types, there is also a type of captain who is chosen because of his popularity. One example that will surely cross mind is David Beckham. Peter Taylor and Sven-Goran Eriksson first made Beckham as the captain of the England national team on November 2000. With Beckham was not even the captain of his club Manchester United, it was very clear that his appointment was based on fame and public relation move to appease England supporters after the failure of EURO 2000.

The two captain positions most talked about currently are those at Manchester United and England national team after the departure of Nemanja Vidic and Steven Gerrard respectively. From a neutral point of view, Wayne Rooney should be the comfortable winners for both positions. However he is facing fierce competitions from more than able competitors in Robin van Persie and Joe Hart respectively. If Rooney does win both captaincies, it is a justified footballing decision as he is a rare hybrid of both two examples of good captains as explained above.