“You want to know about Fabio Capello’s human side? Well, that’s easy. He doesn’t have one. To have a human side, you need to be human.” Those are the words of a well-known Italian journalist, a man who has covered the potential England head coach for many years. And, in some ways, they accurately describe Capello on two levels. His managerial record is so good that it pushes the limits of human capability: nine league titles in 15 seasons at four clubs. At the same time, Capello’s personality and behaviour mean that he is respected (and occasionally feared), rather than loved. He is not a “man of the people”, nor has he ever tried to be. Which may explain why he has few friends in football and in the media.

Instead, in his private life, Capello surrounds himself with culture. His tightest circle of friends consists of artists, literary critics and travel writers. For art and travel are two of his great loves. His art collection - his tastes gravitate towards Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky and Piero Pizzi Cannella, who is also a close friend – is thought to be one of the most impressive in northern Italy.

As for his travels, he avoids the obvious and looks instead for “intelligent” tourism. From preColombian ruins in the Mexican state of Chiapas to Angkor Wat in Cambodia – before it was developed, of course – to hiking in Tibet: Capello’s tastes are eclectic and decidedly highbrow.

Yet it would be wrong to think of him as a Graeme Le Saux-type figure, a man never fully embraced because he was seen to have highbrow pretensions. Capello’s difficulties with a portion of the press and supporters are rooted in real events. Events for which he has never proffered his side of the story; possibly because he has nothing to gain in telling it.

At AS Roma, he spent five years engaged in a vicious war of words with Juventus, lambasting them on a variety of issues on an almost daily basis: from accusations of doping, to influencing referees, to the conflict of interest represented by Luciano Moggi, the club’s general manager, and his son, Alessandro, who was a footballing agent. This – coupled with the league title he won in 2000 – earned him folk hero status in Rome. It all evaporated overnight when he walked out and joined, of all clubs, Juventus in 2004. And he did it without a word to anyone, not even Franco Baldini, his confidant. For several years after leaving Rome, whenever he returned, usually to see his dentist, he did so accompanied by bodyguards.

Despite the two titles he won at Juventus, which were subsequently stripped in the Calciopoli scandal that engulfed Moggi and others, but that did not touch Capello, he failed to win over the hearts of many bianconeri supporters. Indeed, a portion of them blame him for abandoning the ship in hard times by joining Real Madrid when it became clear that the club were going to be severely punished.

Capello does little to cultivate friends in the media and perhaps he has paid a stiffer than normal price for this. Upon arriving in Turin, he refused to give out his mobile number to the local press, something that all his predecessors had done.

Some might say his temper is part of what makes him human. He has had more than a few legendary rows – fist-fights with Paolo Di Canio in Beijing, making an obscene gesture at his own fans at the Bernabéu – and they date back to his playing days. At AC Milan, he once hid in a hedge to ambush a passing journalist who dared to criticise his displays. But that was in the late 1970s and most agree that Capello is too clever to be blinded by rage.

For much of his career, Italo Galbiati, his No 2, has played “good cop” to his “bad cop” and one gets the impression that he views rage as a motivational tool, nothing more. He has also shown the ability to rebuild bridges when he needs to, as he did with David Beckham and Baldini, whom he took to Real after his betrayal of 2004.

It takes a strong woman to partner such a man and, by all accounts, he has one in his wife, Laura. The couple met as teenagers on a city bus in Ferrara in central Italy. They have two sons, one of whom, Pier Filippo, is a lawyer who advises Capello.

Capello, most likely, would not claim to be a model of integrity or loyalty. He would simply point to his record and state that, at every stop in his career, he has delivered silverware, just as he is paid to do.

“He’s not there to be your friend, he’s there to be your boss. It’s a formula that works for him,” Di Canio, who played for two years under Capello at AC Milan, once told me. And a formula, one hopes, that will work for England as well.

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