Skipper, a lot of models

What's exactly the role of captain in a football team? Translating instructions of coach? Being a team's motivator when pressed or when you're winning?.So what criteria should be had by player to be captain? Should he team's star? Should he hold certain positions in the field, such as midfielders? Should he is most senior players, the most experienced? He could scream? Or he was a quiet but gave each squeezed sweat for the team?.

It's very hard to answer those questions. A good and successful captain was a variety of types. There is no one have specific formula that can be used as an absolute model. It all depends on luck and personal preference manager to decide. The only consensus was that the captain should have authority and responsibility. In short, the soul of leadership.

But the captain's role in modern football has changed a lot. If you read the history of Arsenal football Club in the end of the 1920s and the 1930s, when the North London club became the dominant and most wealthy clubs in the United Kingdom so-called Bank of England, captain of the club played as large as the manager. 

Charles Buchan is the skipper who asked for the manager Herbert Chapman changed the role of backline player to adjust the new offside rule. Chapman received the proposal and both are known to frequent discussions about tactics and strategy games.

In fact not long ago in the modern era, Alex Ferguson is known to do similar things with Manchester United captain Bryan Robson. Robson - known as "Captain Marvel"- was also very influential, at least have a voice in determining tactics when he became captain of England team.

Now the captain's role and input obviously is no longer dominant in the overall of the game. Football manager now has so many forces: the team coaches, psychologists, nutritionists, to the team doctor. They give feedback to managers from physical to mental health conditions, the readiness of the game to run a certain game model, until to the tiny.

Not to mention the the game system that allows players subtitution up to three, making none of the players including the captain's position is assured. The captain was still able to give input about the locker room atmosphere, but nothing more.

Don't get it wrong, not that the modern era the captain position then became unimportant. On the field he still plays. In many ways he was the man most trusted by the manager to stick a team in order to move as one unit, to keep reminding instructions of manager to teammate.

Who was the captain is chosen, as mentioned above, really depends on the taste of manager. He, the manager, is the most familiar with the team and the characteristics of the team that he forms, and therefore he know to choose the best to be a team leader.

For example when the manager of Arsenal made Cesc Fabregas to be a captain replaced William,and a lot of people confused to that decision. True Fabregas is the heartbeat of Arsenal game, but would not in the age 21 he is too young? Of course, age can not be used as benchmarks. Was Arsenal legend Tony Adams, being a captain four months younger than Fabregas? He won four leagues and three FA Cups.

Carlos Bilardo choose Diego Maradona as Argentina's team captain that won the 1986 World Cup because he was the team star. Maradona was not shouting for encouragement team nor will defend diligently as he was preparing an attack. But from the his brain and legs are all the attacks began.

The Italian coach like a defender as a team captain. Maybe because culture of Italian football instinctively have a strong defense as the foundation of the game.Carlos Alberto Parreira made Dunga as captain of Brazil when winning the 1994 World Cup even though he was considered second-tier player in terms of skill. But Dunga was a player who according to Parreira could tie the team within one game of balancing defense and attack.

Alex Ferguson admitted like Bryan Robson and Roy Keane as captain. Both are the same type, box to box player. Both will run all day from the penalty box himself to the opponent's penalty box, as persistent as offense and defense and do not hesitate to yell to his colleagues to maintain concentration and sweat.

It is difficult indeed to formulate an ideal model captain. But rest assured, football manager will not be carelessly why they choose certain players and not the other.