Fabio Capello’s appointment as England manager is only the latest example of an Italian influence on English football . . .

— Every player booked for pulling his shirt over his head can blame Fabrizio Ravanelli, below, for transporting his goal celebration from Turin to Teesside, while anyone playing on when an opponent is injured may be jeered a little louder by those who recall Paolo Di Canio’s refusal to score a goal for West Ham United because the opposition’s goalkeeper was prone.

— Football became legitimised for many people in 1990, when England reached the World Cup semi-finals to a Pavarotti soundtrack, and Verdi’s La donna è mobile is used by fans here to chant anything from “Paolo Di Canio” to “You’ve got no history” and “We’ve got more fans than you”.

— Italian-themed battles have abounded. In the Battle of Highbury in 1934, England beat Italy 3-2 in a match of fists and elbows; the Battle of the Buffet, during which copious amounts of pizza were thrown 70 years later, after the match between Manchester United and Arsenal, featured more edible weapons. On that theme, Premier League players run faster and farther nowadays, supposedly because they eat pasta.

— Who has enjoyed the longest stint of any English league manager to have been appointed since 1945? Dario Gradi, born in Milan, of Crewe Alexandra.

— Look no farther than Italians for the fastest goal in a Wembley FA Cup Final (Roberto Di Matteo for Chelsea, after 42 seconds in 1997), the last FA Cup Final goal at the old Wembley (Di Matteo again, three years later) and the first touch, first goal and first hat-trick at the new Wembley and the fastest goal at Wembley old or new (all Giampaolo Pazzini, of Italy Under-21).

— The Anglo-Italian Cup brought an amusing diversion for lower-division clubs in England and Italy, until it succumbed to a fatal cocktail of hooliganism and apathy.

— Liverpool and Derby County fans may have cause to regret certain Italian influences on English fortunes because they were allegedly denied a European Cup final place. It has been alleged that the referees of the second legs of the semi-final defeats for Liverpool by Inter Milan in 1965 and for Derby by Juventus in 1973 were bribed by the Italian clubs.

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