THE TWO faces of Fabio Capello, for one who has known him for some 35 years, are still hard to reconcile . As a player, a much-capped Italy forward, straight-backed, precise and a shrewd distributor of the ball, seldom a scorer for his clubs, though he scored home and away against England in 1973, I found him charming, humorous and amiable.

Born 61 years ago in Pieris, Gorizia, in the northeast of Italy, Capello began with Spal Ferrara, a club now sunk almost without trace but then good enough to play in Serie A.

As a club manager, Capello’s reputation is of a stern, detached, somewhat Machiavellian figure, immune to challenge, no respecter of famous names, inclined, according to some he has managed, to almost Pavlovian mind games.

Perhaps the best analogy is with George Graham, another footballer regarded as a laid-back player but who turned into one of the more uncompromising managers. When Graham played, usually as a semi-spearhead, he was nicknamed Stroller. Tactics then seemed alien to him, workrate no more than abstraction. He was known, in his Arsenal playing days, for never joining in discussions on strategy.

As a manager, however, he readily admitted that he would never have found room in his Arsenal teams for a footballer such as himself. As with Graham, so with Capello. Pragmatism is the name of the game; hard running, tight defence, functionalism to a degree. The word “boring” is often heard; the results are substantial.

I have two especially vivid memories of Capello. First, in 1973, as a player, second, in 1988, when he had already made a mark as a manager.

In June 1973, in Turin, Capello scored Italy’s second goal, somewhat contentiously, in their first victory over England after 40 years. Five months later, at Wembley, he scored again; a goal that proved the winner against Alf Ramsey’s England team.

After the victory in Turin, he told me, somewhat scathingly: “Your play is predictable and perhaps monotonous. In my view, you lack a player like Bobby Charlton, to switch the ball about. On the crosses, you take too much time to get there and make them. You miss [Terry] Cooper a lot, he was a real winger [sic], he didn’t just come forward, he did actually beat defenders.”

At Wembley, his historic goal came when the burly Giorgio Chinaglia, once a Swansea reserve, went past a waning Bobby Moore on the right-hand goal line and shot against Peter Shilton, the ball rebounding to Capello, who had only to tap it into the net.

Fast-forward to June 1988 when England, in the West German finals of the European Championships, had just lost supinely to Holland. Under the uneasy command of Bobby Robson, they then went on to lose their third qualifying match still more abjectly to the Soviets.

Having watched the Dutch game, Capello told me: “I didn’t see any reaction in this team. This was the thing that left me amazed. There wasn’t the rage, la rabbia, you expect from an England team that’s losing.”

So how will Capello, given his reputation as a tough manager, the scourge of the prima donna, react to the calls for picking David Beckham for his 100th cap? Will Capello make a sentimental decision and choose a player whom he had no hesitation in marginalising at Real Madrid?

Alessandro Del Piero, one of the most gifted Italian attackers of his generation, has spoken bitterly of how he suffered with Juventus under Capello’s demanding training regime. The Juve and Italy goalkeeper, Gianluigi Buffon, has said there is no dialogue with Capello. The abrasive Paolo Di Canio told of an explosive moment in Beijing where Milan, under Capello, were on tour and Di Canio was substituted. Capello, he alleged, struck the first blow in a brief brawl, though Di Canio was no stranger to such scenes.

Capello has always been his own man. When he was insensitively told at Milan in the mid-Nineties that his job depended on his winning the championship or the Uefa Cup, he duly won the former and promptly walked out for his first spell at Real Madrid.

Last season, although he won the championship again with Real, he was dismissed by the hierarchy who disapproved of his defensive strategy. It poses the question of how cautious he will be with England.

Di Canio, half critical, half admiring, described the way Capello can change tack with his team, keeping them in what might be called a profitable suspense. This he might well have done at club level, but he will undoubtedly find it harder in the case of an international team he will see only see from time to time. Now he must learn English, and plumb the many idiosyncrasies of the English game.

Meanwhile, Italy gloats...

La Repubblica led the charge. ‘After having looked down their noses at us for more than a hundred years, the English have surrendered to those who play ugly, dirty and closed, but who win,’ trilled their front-page lead. ‘Giving themselves up to Italy is a type of humilation, but perhaps they needed it. Capello will be like an army sergeant, a man who wipes out chaos. He has English lessons to take, but football lessons to give. Wherever Capello goes, he wins’

Gazzetta Dello Sport was equally smug. ‘Thanks to the positive signs coming from abroad, the barometer says sunshine everywhere in Italy at the moment,’ it crowed. ‘On the “intercontinental front”, it looks like we’re about to see Milan become [club] world champions, while Fabio Capello has reawakened Italian pride with this revenge on those who invented the game’

Corriere della Sera was surprised to see Gordon Brown commenting on Capello’s appointment: ‘With all the problems [his] government have, finding time to speak about football doesn’t seem all that normal,’ sniffed the broadsheet. ‘However, the English national team’s crisis has become a nationwide pyschological drama’

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