If Fabio Capello is that concerned about winning with England, he may have missed a trick by banning PlayStations. What happened to playing to your strengths? PlayStation was never the problem for England’s footballers anyway. PlayStation, we’re good at. If Steve McClaren could have found a way of challenging Croatia to a game of Donkey Kong, he might have stood a chance. No gadgets, Fabio? Big mistake. It is the football that needs banning. That is what baffles us.

We do not know much about Fabio, except he is one hard bastard. That is what we love about him, too. The nation is collectively high on the thought of Fabio kicking pampered backsides, stepping on prissy, privileged toes, whipping England’s overrated underachievers into shape. It is all a bit silly really. McClaren put on double training sessions, too; Sven-Göran Eriksson initially questioned why grown men needed a hotel suite devoted to computer games; Terry Venables did not name his team for the first match of Euro ’96 until hours before kick-off.

Much of what Capello is doing is standard practice - today’s captain, Steven Gerrard, said as much, explaining that Rafael BenÍtez ran a similarly austere regime at Liverpool – yet the role he has been chosen to play in the minds of Englishmen is that of the strict disciplinarian. He was asked yesterday whether players would be allowed to play golf. Not until Thursday, he smiled, to general approval. Yet when were England players ever allowed to play golf in the two days before a midweek game? McClaren had some strange ideas – his get-togethers for Saturday internationals grew later and later, and then he factored in a free day on Thursday – but he wasn’t completely daft. The build-up to tonight’s match with Switzerland has followed established lines, beyond the odd rule governing flip-flops and prompt arrival for breakfast.

The desire for Capello to be the boss from hell began with the announcement of a 30-man squad that did not include David Beckham. Had he felt the pulse of the nation, the new man would have sensed he could pretty much get away with anything, including naming no players at all, providing he looked stern when he did it. “You heard the England squad? He’s picked nobody. Reckons they’re all useless. He’s going to go to Wembley on Wednesday night and make obscene gestures at an empty pitch. Damn right, too. That’ll show them. This is what we need, a bit of discipline.”

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BACKGROUND

• Owen out of step with Capello's tough regime

• Capello replaces Game Boys with trials by video

• Who will be Captain Marvel?

• In the beginning was the word and the English word was Boss

BACKGROUND

• Reputations count for nothing, says Brooking

• Capello’s men can’t be one of the lads

• Milner sinks Irish as qualification in sight

• The Insider - February 6

Multimedia

• Live from 8pm: England v Switzerland

• You pick the team and the tactics

• Statistics: England managerial debuts

In time, he could build his squads up, name two players, maybe three. “Have you heard the squad? Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney. No one else. He says he won’t train them, just ambush them in the car park with a rusty spanner. I like this guy. He’s exactly what English football needs.”

Later, he could line up all his players against a wall and head-butt them individually, name a captain, then take him outside and kneecap him, just to teach the others a lesson. And all the while, the English public would be in the background cheering. “You show ’em, Fabio. Don’t take any nonsense.”

Fortunately, what became clear on the eve of Capello’s first match is that the new manager has more on his mind than one hour for lunch, casual footwear and Game Boys. England were not eliminated from the European Championship because the players enjoyed irregular mealtimes. They went out because the football was wrong. Croatia’s movement and technique was superior, their players were braver in ambition and more comfortable on the ball. They had a plan and knew how to enact it.

Capello’s directives for behaviour around the team hotel are designed to create a strong mentality, but they are worthless unless paired with an equally single-minded change of attitude beginning at 8pm today. Capello does not talk in specifics, but it is plain that his early training sessions have been designed to have the same impact as his house rules. “We have worked very hard on the tactical front and analysed videos to achieve movement on the pitch that reflect my views on football,” he said. “I have seen some teams in England that play in the way I want my teams to move, to be compact and gel together. Which teams? I will not say. But some of my players will be used to being asked to play this way and others will not, so it will be something different to them.”

It is fair to assume that the England manager will be looking to emulate the top end of the market – although good luck finding any Arsenal players in your squad, Fabio – rather than the clubs that are fighting relegation. Even so, it is one thing announcing that England should play like Manchester United and another thing doing it. No Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tévez for a start. England don’t even have Paul Scholes any more.

And while the manufacturers of electrical goods across Britain will be perched on ledges at news that the shed-load of Nintendo Wii’s intended for the England HQ will have to be rerouted, a shipment of video equipment, by the sounds of it, will take up the slack. The players’ spare time, now their toys have been confiscated, is taken up by lengthy sessions watching previous calamities and working out what went wrong and why.

“There are games when England have played like England, and others when they have not played as they should,” Capello added. “You can learn a lot by starting with your mistakes, so we have looked at that. When we come back for the next match, I will show them this game against Switzerland, we will see what went right and what did not. This is to get us to a certain place before the match against Andorra in September. We cannot perform miracles in three days, but I will try to pass on the winning mentality. We need to be braver, particularly away from home.”

Capello says he always plays 4-4-2, but that is not strictly true. He has been known to play 4-4-2 with a twist, sometimes 4-3-1-2, sometimes 4-2-3-1, so it will be no surprise if his starting lineup tonight contains no bold injection of youth, but the established players in a slightly shuffled order. As important as the selection of David Bentley or Ashley Young will be a change in attitude, expectation and organisation, exactly what is required from an ascetic Italian football man, in fact.

“Bring it on” was one of the logos behind Capello as he spoke, and that will certainly reflect the mood of the nation at Wembley tonight. Some will not be satisfied until there is blood on the walls, but Capello is too shrewd for that yet. He may rough them up a bit to see if they get the message, but at the moment, he is just putting the frighteners on. After all, we wouldn’t want any unpleasantness.

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