There is an atavistic feeling in all of us about the manager of the England football team. We expect him, for better or worse, to be some kind of archetypal Englishman – a man who represents us, a man who is us, in victory and defeat. He is part of the way the nation sees itself, understands itself.

Fabio Capello may cut a bella figura in the art galleries of Italy and Spain, but it is disconcerting to find that the new manager of the England football team can’t speak the language: “My English is not so well.” We all hope it gets better soon.

Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive and the man responsible for bringing in Capello, said that it was his ambition to appoint an English coach of the England team, but, rather as Saint Augustine prayed for chastity: “Not yet!” And so Capello, resembling an ageing Clark Kent in spectacles and bulging suit, fielded questions through an interpreter, clearly understanding more than he spoke and promising to learn English in a month.

Capello’s predecessor – if we can forget (let us try, anyway) the hapless Steve McClaren – was Sven-Göran Eriksson. Eriksson, though Swedish, made himself an honorary Englishman, at least while he was winning, and spoke a stately Svenglish throughout.

But Capello is as English as spaghetti alla carbonara. He is Italian and everything about him demonstrates that he has no intention of being anything else. He brings in an Italian back-room staff: this is not just the appointment of the best man for the job, this is a cultural revolution.

Is that right? Is that fair? It depends where you draw the line, what you believe sport is all about and what you think Englishness means. Some say that the appointment of a foreigner is a disgrace, unfair to English managers. Some even say that bringing in a foreign manager is nothing less than cheating – an attempt to buy the World Cup on the never-never at £4.8 million a year.

So where do you draw the line? Should we refuse to allow players to seek medical assistance for footballing injuries from anyone other than English doctors? Should we refuse to take on tactical ideas fostered in countries other than our own? Should we stick to English steak-and-chips nutrition, or should we give the players spaghetti alla carbonara? Should we stick to traditional English training methods and insist that players work without the ball all week so they are “hungry for it” on match day?

It is clear that it is not the attempt to reinvigorate an insular culture with foreign expertise that rankles. Rather, it is the fact that the figurehead – the man who will take all the praise and all the blame for the team’s exploits – is not only not an Englishman, but throughout all eternity could never even think of being one.

So we must ask: is it the purpose of the England team to express their – our – Englishness, or is their purpose the pursuit of excellence? Is it our shared ambition to make the England team as good as they possibly could be, by whatever legitimate means come to hand?

If we are indeed looking for excellence, we have no alternative but to hire a manager from overseas. There is, after all, no English manager of the first rank working in football. Hence Capello, who hinted yesterday at a romantic view of English football, one shared by many foreigners. It is the job, he said, he has always wanted; the money is secondary, nice position to be in. He is “honored” to be the England manager and he said so with fractured sincerity.

But a few diehards will ask, so what? Capello doesn’t represent England and he certainly doesn’t represent English football. But in truth he represents both. English football is vibrantly, almost stridently multicultural. There is not a continent unrepresented in the playing staff of the Barclays Premier League, scarcely a European country.

English football is a tumultuous Babel of languages, a vast bazaar of cultures, presided over by polyglot managers, and the only common language is football.

Domestic football takes expertise from wherever it can; it is not only logical but inevitable that international football should go the same way.

England itself is multicultural whether we like it or not. We are forced to change our ideas from one year to the next as to what constitutes essential Englishness. Again, it is natural and inevitable that the confusion be expressed in football.

And the truth is that Capello has been far more welcomed than he has been resented. We are all Europeans now and you can get spaghetti alla carbonara at the pub. The McClaren months of traditional English fodder left us with empty bellies, so it is time to go out for a really good Italian.

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