At least David Beckham will always have Paris. Quite what the rest of us get to take from this is a mystery, but if we stay with the Casablanca theme for one second, at least playing it again is not an option.

The hope with the appointment of Fabio Capello was that England would grow into one of those dour, unspectacular Italian-influenced teams who are not exciting to watch but damn near impossible to beat. Halfway there, then. In the Stade de France, Capello’s England contrived to be as dull as ditchwater but failed to master the second part of the equation, which involves not losing. In this, the new manager failed the challenge to produce the unexpected. On present form, France would be fancied to win against England in Paris, and so it proved.

The manner of the defeat was something else, however, because England were unexceptional here, for all the stimulus of the new regime. After his first match against Switzerland, Capello had asked his players for patience and less reliance on long-ball football, but if this was their response, something has been lost in translation.

The best European and South American teams go slow to go quick. They build in a patient manner and then, when all the pieces are in place, explode and attack the opposition in a fury of wit and movement. England often seemed to start slow to go even slower and it is not enough to blame tiredness in the depth of the Barclays Premier League season when four of the France starting line-up play in the same competition.

What was missing was pace on the flanks. Joe Cole has many strengths and is potentially the most inventive forward Capello has at his disposal, but his lick has never been a feature and using him with Beckham on the right made England particularly pedestrian in the first half. Starting Beckham was the right thing to do — for how else was he to be judged? — but the bigger question for Capello now is whether to finish him. England may have thrashed around in his absence under Steve McClaren, Capello’s predecessor, but this was no better and in Franck Ribéry, France showed English football what a talismanic midfield player should do.

Ribéry was, by some distance, the best in show, quick and ferocious on the counterattack and chalk to Beckham’s cheese. England’s centurion can still play those searching long passes as accurately as he did a decade ago, but the other part of his game, the energy that covered more of the pitch that any man in the stadium bar the groundsman, has long gone.

The saving grace, from Beckham’s perspective, was that he was no worse than many. He was not the weak link in England’s chain because nowhere did it have a really strong one. Grégory Coupet, the France goalkeeper, did not have a save of note to make and when Beckham returned to applaud his supporters at the England end after the final whistle, it was noticeable that the majority had left.

In one sense, Capello is fortunate because he arrives with such a towering reputation that any disappointments will be blamed on his players, yet he cannot be absolved from the vapid and one-paced nature of England’s display.

There is an episode of Blackadder in which Edmund plans on sailing around the world. He employs a captain, who is quite mad and prepared to undertake the journey single-handed and when questioned on the wisdom of this, claims that opinion is divided on whether a ship needs a crew. “Everyone else says you do,” he cries. “I say you don’t.”

Looking at England last night, Capello’s take on pace at international level appears to have followed similar lines. While every other manager in world football is searching for the forward who can terrify defenders with his speed, Capello begs to differ. Perhaps he feels that England need to learn to pass the ball before graduating to doing it with gusto and he may have a point, but it is going to make the next few years slow going. When it fails, Capello’s way can be painful to watch and his Juventus team looked similarly lifeless against Arsenal in the Champions League two years ago.

No doubt this performance was a thousand miles away from where Capello hopes to be in two years’ time, but, worryingly, there are few hints that the qualification process for the 2010 World Cup will be any less stressful under him than the doomed assault on Euro 2008 was under McClaren. Capello has an enormous amount of work to do to reshape England with self-belief and energy and while only a Ribéry penalty separated these teams, the fact is that France looked a different entity, even without key players.

It did not help that the crowd in the Stade de France was largely mute and the match was played in silence for long periods, giving it an eerie, unreal air. The timing of France’s goal was a blow, too, coming as England were enjoying a brief period of domination after starting poorly.

Beckham had failed by inches to get on the end of a cross by Ashley Cole and Steven Gerrard had come close with two headers when France did what good international teams do — broke with pace — and showed their opponents the way forward. François Clerc played in Nicolas Anelka and the Chelsea striker ran off John Terry, his clubmate, as if he was not there; which, in the circumstances, he probably was not.

Terry has been hurt by Capello’s insistence on a captaincy audition and to see the armband given to Rio Ferdinand must have been painful. Has it rocked his confidence with England? Who knows, but he seemed unlike his usual self when Anelka slipped his attention and made for goal.

David James, the England goalkeeper, has never been at his best in these situations against France and those with memories of the European Championship finals in 2004 will guess what happened next. It all seemed to unfold in slow motion as Anelka was upended and the referee pointed to the spot. Then again, much the same can be said for the rest of the action.

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