IN A study in a flat in a leafy London square, Gianluca Vialli is explaining that the English football fan is married to his club while the Italian one just uses it for sex. It is the colourful tip of an iceberg. In an era in which the football book deal involves laying ghosts or paying them, he has just made literary history by producing an academic thesis that name-checks Beowulf, Machiavelli and Sir Alex Ferguson in the same paragraph.

It is this erudite approach to the Anglo-Italian culture clash that has left the former Chelsea and Juventus icon confused by England’s quest for a new manager. “There is only one English manager who has won anything since 1996 so they decide they want an Englishman,” he said. “Something needs to be addressed here.

“In Italy we’ve had a coaching course since 1957 and that means Italian players have a wider tactical knowledge. Now there is a course in England and it is producing talented young managers — people like Iain Dowie, Alan Pardew and Adrian Boothroyd. The only barrier that needs to be overcome is for a chairman to give one of them a chance at the top. Then you will have a new generation.” He means the top, too, suggesting Dowie could manage England now. “Give him four years,” he said. “Think long term and use the next European Championship as a stepping stone. Why not? Why not go for someone younger?”

Having just completed The Italian Job, his charity book complete with graphs, a discourse on wind and an aside from Arsène Wenger on why the militaristic nature of the Anglo-Saxon psyche means English players run into walls, Vialli believes he knows what makes the ultimate team. It comes down to merging English passion with the rational traits of Machiavelli, one of the luminaries featured in outlining Vialli’s football philosophy.

“Chelsea have a very rational manager and a very astute one,” Vialli explained. “He (José Mourinho) has English players driving the team with a lot of passion and that’s contagious. If you join Chelsea you can’t help looking at John Terry and Frank Lampard and feeling, ‘God, that’s the standard’.

“But you also do anything in the rules. It’s like Mourinho says, you help the referee make a decision. One thing Mourinho said was that English players play with their hearts, Europeans with brains. Football played with the heart is more beautiful but not as successful.”

Vialli believes Mourinho’s Machiavellian mores, allied to English tradition, is close to the perfect mix. “I really enjoy watching Manchester United,” he said. “Imagine teams are like boxers. Man United get in the ring, start throwing punches and say let’s see who’s the last man standing. Chelsea are more cautious. They want to be the last man standing but they don’t want to be hit.”

Mourinho, Ferguson and Wenger helped Vialli as he sought answers. So did Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi and Sven-Göran Eriksson. The consensus was that in Italy football is a job, while in England it is a game. “Italian dressing-rooms are serious, joyless places,” Vialli said. “From the age of 9 it is all about getting results, whereas in England it’s about values and principles.

It means Europeans never switch off. When you’re not on the training ground you do what we call invisible training. My advice to any Italian manager coming over would be not to expect English players to think football for 24 hours a day. Mourinho found it at Chelsea. English players don’t think football.”

The subject of England highlights the differences in cultures. “You had an Englishman, Kevin Keegan, managing a club and England part-time,” Vialli said. “That would never happen in Italy.”

Nor would the tabloid sting for which Eriksson fell. “I say things about my wife sometimes, nobody is perfect,” Vialli said. “What they did was nasty. I think people will regret it when he has gone. Judge him by what he leaves behind.”

England, he thinks, can win the World Cup. Sadly, Beowulf, another Scandinavian, led 11 men against a fire-breathing dragon and died. That’s football.

VIALLI TARNISHED

GIANLUCA VIALLI says he wants to manage in the Barclays Premiership but believes he may have to return to Italy to resurrect his career. He led Chelsea to the FA Cup, Uefa Cup and League Cup before being sacked five games into the 2000-01 season but thinks his ill-fated season at Watford four years ago is working against him. “The problem here is that if you are given a job and it doesn’t work out then you are out of the game,” he said.

Vialli denied Italian reports that he could join Sven-Göran Eriksson at Juventus if Fabio Capello leaves in the summer.

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