Fabio Capello, the England manager, goes into a World Cup hiatus having made history, revived a broken team and breathed life into dying men. Not a bad two months, then. The most eye-catching fact is that this was England’s fourth consecutive group six win, which represents the best start the national team have made in the qualifying stage of this competition, but bald statistics cannot express the extent to which the Italian has transformed English football, or the way he has contrived to do it with so little fuss.

Capello has made a prolific goalscorer of Wayne Rooney again, brought harmony to the heart of midfield, emboldened a protégé in Theo Walcott and found a line-leading centre forward in Emile Heskey where it was previously considered none existed. He has turned a group of players who staggered from their last campaign, shell-shocked like war veterans, and made them the epitome of calm, battle-hardened efficiency. In adversity here, they did not panic. Under incredible pressure in Zagreb, they rose to the challenge. It is like watching a different team, yet the personnel has barely changed.

Capello said he wished to be judged only when the competitive games began, and his self-belief was justified. The stuttering England witnessed in his friendly games is a distant memory now, a childish doodle, an early work, crude and unformed. This is the real deal. Maybe this England will be, too.

Credit is due to all who have played a part in carrying out Capello’s instructions with such assuredness, but, in Minsk, it was down to three in particular: Rooney and Steven Gerrard, the match-winners, and Heskey, whose selfless efforts have turned England into prolific goalscorers, with 14 in four competitive matches (and only two of those in the turkey shoot of Andorra). Heskey’s name rarely appears on the scoresheet but his aura does, it is what has turned Rooney into the confident, world-class forward who has been missing since the European Championship finals in 2004.

South Africa looms large for Capello

Belarus 1 England 3: Steven Gerrard opens the scoring before Wayne Rooney takes centre-stage with double strike

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The days of trial and error are over. Capello knows Rooney’s best position for certain now and it is behind a target man-striker. It will take exceptional circumstances for him to be moved again. Together, Heskey and Rooney put in football’s equivalent of a double weekend shift and then some in Minsk, always available, always providing an option for a midfield that needed to move the ball on quickly under pressure from a youthful Belarus team. With the scores level at 1-1, Heskey and Rooney combined for a goal that illustrated perfectly why their partnership is such a success. Heskey battled his way down the left flank, shrugging off the attention of defenders, looking up for a quick cross only to see Rooney having problems holding the line and half a yard offside. He delayed, rode another challenge, waited until Rooney was in the perfect position to receive and slipped him the ball, the striker opening his body to steer it past Yury Zhevnov in the Belarus goal. Together, they made it look so simple; in reality, it was far from that.

Yet England are making a lot look simple these days. This was a tough game and Belarus are difficult opponents, capable of messing up superior opposition the way the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia did Steve McClaren’s England when drawing at Old Trafford. By the end, though, England were in complete control in a way that surpassed even the teams managed by serial qualifier Sven-Göran Eriksson. Rooney’s second put air into the scoreline, and what a beauty it was. Rooney dummied a pass 35 yards out but continued his run towards goal, at which point he was picked out perfectly by Gerrard.

As Belarus hit the panic switch, Rooney dribbled around one desperate tackle before finishing high into the net from eight yards out. It was a goal that spoke for England’s rebuilt confidence and of one man in particular. Capello is starting to get a higher level of performance out of Rooney than any other manager in recent years; perhaps even Sir Alex Ferguson.

Had Gerrard not hit a post with an open goal beckoning after going round a defender and the goalkeeper, the scoreline would have matched the victory in Zagreb, but it would be churlish to make this miss — although it was a howler — too much of an issue; especially as Gerrard did Capello’s bidding by starting on the left and got the goal that eased the pressure on England and put the team on their way.

It came after just 11 minutes. Frank Lampard won a tackle in midfield, the ball ran loose, Rooney scuffled for it, found Gerrard and he steered a sublime curling shot out of the reach of Zhevnov and into the far corner. He has now scored twice in the past three games in which he has started left of the midfield four. Perhaps that debate can be laid to rest, too, now?

What Capello also got right, though, was his assessment of the technical ability of the Belarus team, with his comparison to the nimble, shortpassing game of Arsenal. Those who believed the England manager was indulging in hyperbole and perhaps a little self-preservation by talking up the difficulty of the opposition were quickly dissuaded from this hopeful fantasy by the Belarus response to England’s first goal. Far from being stunned or subdued by Gerrard’s early intervention, they used it as the motivation to play to their attacking strengths and came at England, initially overrunning the midfield with quick, imaginative passing interchanges and movement.

David James, the England goalkeeper, was not looking convincing and when Pavel Sitko — a 22-year-old left-sided player who will surely not remain at his club, Vitebsk, for long — tested him with a shot from 20 yards, it took James two attempts to bring the ball under control. Not a good sign. There were more worrying developments on the flanks, where Wes Brown and Wayne Bridge were getting little protection and the Belarussians were looking increasingly dangerous.

Igor Stasevich, a 22-year-old right-sided player with BATE Borisov, the first Belarussian team to make the group stage of the Champions League, was causing Bridge particular problems and it was no surprise that the equalising goal should be his creation. If this underplays the contribution of his team-mates it is only because there were too many involved to list by name, the goal coming at the end of 23 passes in a manner that made Capello’s reference to Arsenal seem remarkably prescient.

Cutting to the chase, though, Stasevich dummied a cross, Bridge did not so much buy it as have the damn thing nationalised and Sitko stole in behind Brown at the far post so that when the ball did arrive, he stooped low unmarked with only James to beat.

On another night, under another manager, there might have been darting eyes and nervous glances. Instead, Capello gave his players the hard stare and they continued executing the plan as directed. It sounds so straightforward, this new thinking, maybe even a little dull. It is not. For this team, it is revolution writ large, although Capello will make it look and sound easy, like so much of what he does.

Group Six Results: Kazakhstan 3 Andorra 0; Andorra 0 England 2; Croatia 3 Kazakhstan 0; Ukraine 1 Belarus 0; Andorra 1 Belarus 3; Croatia 1 England 4; Kazakhstan 1 Ukraine 3; England 5 Kazakhstan 1; Ukraine 0 Croatia 0; Belarus 1 England 3; Croatia 4 Andorra 0.

Fixtures: 2009: April 1 Andorra v Croatia; England v Ukraine; Kazakhstan v Belarus. June 6 Belarus v Andorra; Croatia v Ukraine; Kazakhstan v England. June 10 England v Andorra; Ukraine v Kazakhstan. August 12 Belarus v Croatia. September 5 Croatia v Belarus; Ukraine v Andorra. September 9 Andorra v Kazakhstan; Belarus v Ukraine; England v Croatia. October 10 Belarus v Kazakhstan; Ukraine v England. October 14 Andorra v Ukraine; England v Belarus; Kazakhstan v Croatia.