Nobody in football knows Fabio Capello better than Raúl, the captain of Real Madrid, where the coach had two title-winning seasons, ten years apart, both achieved with maximum speed and efficiency.

Capello is football’s problem-solver, a role that he is capable of performing for England, according to a player whose career he helped to revitalise last season.

“He will give the England team back a clear identity,” Raúl said. “The two seasons he had at Real Madrid were both during difficult times for the club. Eleven years ago he came in as the whole team was being rebuilt and we won the league in that one season. Then last season he had to endure so much criticism, with so many people saying that the team was not playing well, but we ended up as champions again.”

Raúl was in such a lull at the start of Capello’s second tenure that, having captained a team who had won nothing for three consecutive seasons, Ramón Calderón, the club’s president, wanted to loan the striker out. Capello refused to lose his talisman from a decade earlier and shipped out Ronaldo instead, turning the club and the player’s fortunes around.

“The most important thing from a player’s point of view is that you understand very quickly exactly what he wants you to do on the pitch,” Raúl said, pointing to Capello’s ability to create a system that players understand and are comfortable with. “That is one of the fundamental things in football. It’s the foundation for things to go well for any team.

“You can have good games and bad games – sometimes the team plays very well and sometimes not so well, but as a player you always know exactly what it is the coach wants from you.

“And with Capello, all 11 players on the pitch know exactly what it is that they and the player alongside him is supposed to be doing. And if there are one or two who are not doing so, they will have to answer for that, but the system is very clear.

“I think he will do the England job very well. I only have good things to say about him. Apart from the fact that he is a man with so much experience, he wants the job. He is looking for this kind of massive challenge. England is a huge footballing nation that has not done as well as it could have done in the last few tournaments.”

Raúl is not the only fading star to be given a second chance last season by Capello. The clock was running down on David Beckham’s four years at Real and, in terms of trophies, the cupboard was bare. Capello dropped the midfield player, said that he would never pick him again, then made him an integral part of the nucleus of players that snatched the league from Barcelona on the final day of the season.

Raúl believes that Beckham has two years left – time enough for him to make the next World Cup under Capello’s management. “He can still be part of things for the next World Cup,” the Spain striker said. “He still has a lot to give. He could have played here for two more years. It is his decision, of course, but he could have stayed here and he would have continued to be an important player for us.”

For the Real captain, Beckham characterises some of the more positive traits of the English game that he believes Capello will want to maximise rather than change. “In England you have a very particular football culture,” Raúl said. “It is noticeable in the way people get behind their team. The intensity and rhythm that comes from the fans then translates to the pitch, even with teams in the bottom half of the table – the desire to keep going forward. You don’t want to lose all that.”

The pace of the Premier League helps to make it arguably the best in the world, but it can give rise to a lack of patience that can be costly on the international stage. Raúl, though, feels that the speed of the English game will not change – and does not mean that necessarily as a negative.

“The tempo comes from the intensity of the supporters and the desire of the players to give them what they want,” he said. “It has something to do with the mentality of the English. I remember watching Beckham and he would start the game with a slight knock, but from the first minute to the last he would be fighting for everything, and that comes from the football he has grown up with at Manchester United.

“That is why the fans appreciate it even when their team loses, if they know that they have given everything. We played Manchester United in the European Cup and the people were applauding us, they were applauding their own players, they were applauding everybody.”

Will they end up applauding Capello? The coach left Raúl in better shape than he found him at the start of last season when Capello fronted up at the Bernabéu and Raúl goes into the clásico against Barcelona on December 23 with eight goals in 12 matches, his best start to a season for almost a decade.

“I’m in great form,” he said. It’s difficult to compare it with other parts of my career, but I’m certainly playing a lot closer to the [penalty] area than in recent seasons. I’m performing and the team is playing well, creating lots of chances. Ruud van Nistelrooy and Robinho are both scoring goals and we are looking dangerous up front.

“It is just three points we are playing for against Barcelona, but it is the last game of the year, so it is three points plus the confidence and the damage to the morale that can be done to the other team.”

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