Asked to explain what encouragement he had received from Fabio Capello during the Italian's first two England gatherings, one player shot a look best described as quizzical. “How do you mean encouragement?” he said. “He barely speaks to us.” If nothing else, it confirmed that the rumours are true; that Capello truly does not care about his players' sensitivities, their reputations. However many times the squad had been told as much before Capello's arrival, he has still hit them like a cold shower. One that is unlikely to relent.

England's trip to Paris featured a couple of classic Capello moments. The players were eating their lunch on Tuesday when the manager wandered up to Rio Ferdinand's table, said, “You're captain,” and then walked off. If it made Ferdinand feel 10ft tall, it had precisely the opposite effect on John Terry, who had dared to hope that he would be back as skipper, but then had to put on a brave face in front of the rest of the squad. “You had to feel sorry for JT,” one observer said. Capello will not have been wasting any energy on sympathy.

Then, when David Beckham won his 100th cap, there was no ceremony whatsoever. Had Sven-Göran Eriksson still been in charge, the very least we might have expected was a pitchside presentation and a guard of honour. Capello's policy was not to mention the occasion at all and he will be thrilled that he will never again have to hear the words “100th cap” and “Beckham” in the same sentence.

If Capello's approach is exactly what you had longed for after too many years of indulgence, that does not reduce its impact on England players used to rather different treatment. As England manager, Kevin Keegan, desperate to be one of the lads, led the race nights in the team hotel at Euro 2000.

His successor, Eriksson, went to the trouble of asking Beckham during the last World Cup finals what he thought about going to right back. The captain did not think it was a great idea. And then there was Steve McClaren, who sought feedback from his players over dinner between international games.

Capello is no more likely to invite Terry, Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney to air their thoughts on his regime than he is to demand a troupe of England cheerleaders. His methods are all the more fascinating because these players are suffering a crisis of confidence, by common consent.

You might think that they would need reassurance, a metaphorical cuddle, but there has been no attempt to soften up aside from Capello's strangely gushing remarks after England's defeat by France. The only possible explanation was that he knew the truth would hurt too much. Telling the players just how laboured they had been would have deepened their neuroses.

“In any Capello squad, there has always been a third of the dressing-room that hates him,” one experienced Capello-watcher revealed. “He doesn't give a damn as long as the majority are with him. And because he's so good, they always are.”

As things stand, dissent is not an option for the England players, even if there will, inevitably, be a few disgruntled mutterings. It is not as though any of them are playing well enough to expect a place automatically.

For now they will buy into his double training sessions, his compulsory “quiet times in their rooms” before a match. They will follow his dress code of wearing suits rather than tracksuits to travel. When they are substituted, they will not hang around in the dressing-room, but shower, change into their official garb and sit dutifully on the bench, as Terry and Gerrard did on Wednesday.

England have not had a manager so brusque since Sir Alf Ramsey. If any of his players departed after an international saying, “See you next time, Alf”, they would be met with a withering remark along the lines of “Possibly”. As with Capello, there was never a danger of anyone becoming complacent.

On Wednesday evening, someone remembered that, after watching England lose his first game in charge, a 5-2 defeat by France, Ramsey sat down in the dressing-room next to Jimmy Armfield. “Do we always play like that?” he asked the captain.

The thought must have been in Capello's mind in the Stade de France on Wednesday. But Capello being Capello, he declined to invite his players to join the tactical evaluation.

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