Debate: what do you think - can England really win the World Cup in 2010?

Is it right, in this day and age, for players to be asked to fly 3,500 miles to perform on a pitch clearly unfit for international football, in a supposedly European country where corruption is of widespread concern and the people have no choice in their head of government? But enough of the problems Kazakhstan encountered when they lost 5-1 at Wembley. That was eight months ago, for heaven’s sake — and England proved in Almaty on Saturday that they were the better team in any conditions.

What a strange 4-0 victory it was nonetheless: one that underlined nothing more than the importance of physical condition. However many times England gave the ball away — often with passes so ludicrously overhit that Fabio Capello, finding contempt somehow inadequate, clapped encouragingly as they sailed into touch — they were strong, fast and poised enough to win it back. Highly competent finishing did the rest.

There was even a memory to cherish. Seldom can more thrilling football have been crammed into a couple of seconds than when Wayne Rooney, having seen a delightfully subtle close-range touch fall victim to Alexandr Mokin’s startling one-handed save, edged back to realign his body for a controlled scissor-volley into the net. Bludgeon or rapier? Whichever weapon is chosen, Rooney can wield it expertly.

Kazakhs are only one of the many peoples who must find it bewildering that we fret about him.

Maybe it is because we have so little to fret about. Six matches and not a point dropped, with Andorra at home to come, put England among the most impressive national teams of the World Cup qualifying season about to end, along with the likes of Spain, Holland, Brazil — much pressure on Dunga, the coach, was relieved by a 4-0 triumph in Uruguay at the weekend — and Chile, whose win in Paraguay gives them a serious chance of going to South Africa.

Capello’s men will be there and I see no reason to alter the view that they can be world champions 13 months from now, even though the Italian spent half of Saturday night rolling his eyes, throwing back his head and spreading his arms in frustration.

There is a lot for this team still to learn, not least patience in possession, but 13 months is a long time in which to close the gap on Spain, the most patient and — Capello must hope his players come to understand how little this owes to coincidence — best national team in Europe.

During the build-up to the match in Almaty, his captain, John Terry, mentioned that in training Capello often “screams at the lads” when they whack the ball from back to front. “No long ball,” he yells. “No long ball.” And no wonder. All of them, if they are the professionals we imagine, must have studied Barcelona this season. They must have seen how a team “rests on the ball” (to use a phrase favoured by José Mourinho, at least when he was in Portugal) while waiting for chances to penetrate.

Yet old habits die hard. Against Kazakhstan, they could afford a first half strewn with inaccuracy. It would have been different against a top side and Capello will keep working on how to blend the essential element of English urgency — of course a country must use the best of its tradition — with the care for possession that should be universal among teams seeking to enforce skill. Arrigo Sacchi achieved that quite brilliantly at AC Milan two decades ago, as Capello needs reminding least of all, for it was he who took over that side of Sacchi’s and made them European club champions again, better than ever in the unforgettable 1994 final against Barcelona.

If he can make half as good a side out of England (let’s be reasonable), they will be competitive in South Africa.

True, the money on Spain is smart and the scepticism about England understandable after 43 years without a trophy, but people who keep harking back to their 2-0 defeat in a friendly in Seville in February tend to overlook that, while the European champions were near full strength, Capello started without Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard (though Lampard played in the second half).