I read Amane's comments on the impacts of captains on team play a few months ago and since then have been paying close to attention to selection and performance of captains. On the basis of my experience. I believe the captain can have a significant impact on overall team performance. Because the influences on team performance are so complex and variable, this is not a testable proposition in the scientific sense. It seems closer to an Economics or Psychology hypothesis.

My reason for believing Amane is on to something are three outlier games. In two cases, my team played sensationally well against high quality opponents matched by an 8 level performance by the team captain. In the third example, I was experiencing unexpected issues beating an inferior team at home until I made a mid-game sub of the captain replacing him with a new captain. The first captain had been performing at a mediocre level (6) and the new one came in and performed very well (an 8). After I had made the substitution, my team cleaned its act up and won the game convincingly.

None of this is definitive, but to me it strongly suggests Amane's is right.

An open question I have is selecting the position of the captain. I have no view on how that relates to ones tactics.