“People say I’m impatient when it comes to football and they’re right. I can’t stand the crap that gets talked by everyone: players, fans, the media, club officials. Why should I waste my time listening to people who are clearly less intelligent than me?”

Fabio Capello is not your typical football manager. The Italian is never as sick as a parrot and football is not a funny old game. Football and art are his life and winning trophies is what he does best. Stand back and admire his CV – nine league titles with Real Madrid, AC Milan, Juventus, AS Roma and the European Cup with Milan in 1994. Think he does not have what it takes to succeed where Steve McClaren failed? Think again.

“The best moment of my career? Scoring against England at Wembley in 1973.”

Football became Capello’s destiny when he discovered as a boy that one of his uncles played for Italy. Raised in a strict family on the northeast coast of Italy at a time when memories of the Second World War were fresh, Capello set out to follow in his uncle’s footsteps. His father, who had nearly died in a concentration camp, encouraged his son to chase his dream.

“For Capello, football is all about winning. He does not see beauty in the game.” - Arrigo Sacchi

Capello spent almost 15 years, after he retired as a player in 1979, coaching young players and running Milan’s youth academy. When he became coach at the San Siro in 1991, he was 45. The Milan board thought it was replacing Sacchi with a company man who would do as he was told. Capello had other ideas and set about turning Milan from a team who played the beautiful game into a one who ground out results. In five years, Milan won the title four times and were unbeaten for 58 matches between May 1991 and March 1993. When his employers thought that he was getting too big for his boots – two years after Milan had beaten Barcelona 4-0 in the European Cup final – Capello took a year out from the game.

“Players have to know that we are here to work.”

For Capello, nothing is more important than winning and that means ruling with a rod of iron. The list of players he has fallen out with is impressive – Alessandro Del Piero, David Beckham, Ronaldo, Edgar Davids, Francesco Totti, Paolo Di Canio and Antonio Cassano.

Di Canio’s experiences with Capello at Milan should serve as a warning for John Terry and Co. When Milan went to China in the summer of 1996, the players thought that they were in the Far East to make friends and sell shirts. Capello soon set them straight. Playing against a China XI in Beijing, the coach started with three attackers – Di Canio, Roberto Baggio and Gianluigi Lentini. At half-time and with Milan leading 1-0, Capello took off Di Canio and replaced him with a midfield player to protect Milan’s lead. “Why are you so obsessed withthe result of a friendly?” Di Canio said before he and Capello squared up. “You are an ugly c*** and your face looks like a penis,” Capello shouted. Di Canio never played for Milan again.

“I am not here to make friends.”

Capello wins trophies and makes enemies. He became a hero to Roma fans after winning the title in the Italian capital in 2005 and sticking two fingers up at their hated rivals, Juventus. Capello hated Juventus so much that the Turin giants had tried to sue him for libel. In 2004, he got into his company car and drove through the night to Turin. The next morning he became the Juventus manager. Capello also left Real Madrid under a cloud in June despite winning the Spanish title. He was dismissed for producing a defensive side that won without flair.

“Capello is devoted to himself.” – an Italian journalist “

He hardly has any friends, he is phenomenally wealthy and he is a very hard man. Imagine José Mourinho on steroids.”

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