Do England supporters care more than the players? I Marcotti: Benitez would do the same if he was Capello I Walcott out of Germany match I Walcott slip puts forward line a step back I Analysis: Tony Cascarino I Graphic: History boys do battle in Berlin

If he were the demonstrative kind, Fabio Capello would have been unsure whether to laugh or cry. Unsure, that is, until it dawned on the England manager how news of Theo Walcott’s freakish injury in training at the Olympic Stadium last night would be received at Arsenal and how it will further strengthen the unhealthy perception of international football as an impediment to the fortunes and aspirations of the game’s all-powerful clubs.

It is not a view that will be shared by many of the anticipated 72,000 capacity crowd in the Olympic Stadium for the friendly between Germany and England this evening, but international football is a strange beast, one that has been tamed almost into submission. The past days have brought all manner of debate about the commitment of England’s footballers to their national team, but, despite Capello’s attempts to lay down the law after accepting that seven of his first-choice XI were not fit enough to travel to Berlin, the injury to an eighth player, Walcott, will be seized upon as evidence that these international friendly matches are far more trouble than they are worth, even when the fixture in question concerns a fierce rivalry born of past conflicts both on and off the pitch.

No more than half an hour before the injury that claimed Walcott last night, Capello had emerged, flustered, from a press conference in which he was grilled over the severity of the mysterious aches and strains that had wiped out almost his entire team. Capello, who was suspicious enough to drag Steven Gerrard from Merseyside on Sunday to undergo an assessment on a groin injury that was to be proved every bit as serious as Liverpool’s medical staff claimed, reacted by stating that he believed the spate of withdrawals to be an unfortunate coincidence rather than a reflection on the triviality of the game.

John Terry, the captain, offered a rather different theory, suggesting that his manager was in fact being “clever” — allowing the players and their clubs a little slack now in the expectation of getting some serious co-operation once the World Cup qualifying campaign resumes in the spring.

Capello was not admitting to anything of the sort. He claimed that he was satisfied that all of the missing players — these include Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Emile Heskey and Wayne Rooney as well as Gerrard — were carrying genuine injuries. But, odd as it may sound, there is a difference between having an injury and being injured. Terry claimed that he is rarely 100 per cent fit, with his endeavours taking an inevitable toll on his body over the course of a season, but that there are occasions when every player plays through the pain barrier. It just seems that this is not one of those times.

Even Capello seemed to admit as much at one point — suggesting that Gerrard or Lampard might have been able to play with an injection if necessary — even if that went against the general thrust of his argument.

As a former coach of, among others, AC Milan and Real Madrid, Capello is as aware as anyone of the inconvenience that international football causes for clubs with big ambitions. But it is only since being appointed by England in December that he has come to realise the power that is held by the biggest Barclays Premier League clubs and, specifically, their managers. Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, asked Gerrard to play with a groin injury for the opening fortnight of the season and then scheduled an operation for the end of August, ruling his captain out of the World Cup qualifying matches against Andorra and Croatia in September. Capello was outraged, but club managers everywhere would say that this was Benítez’s prerogative. As for the players, they are caught in the crossfire.

Capello, not the type to cede ground willingly, struck back in one sense on Sunday when, having been told by Liverpool that Gerrard was again injured, he demanded that the midfield player travel to Hertfordshire to be assessed by the FA’s staff. A series of scans confirmed the club’s earlier prognosis, but Capello feels that a minor point has been made. “This will be the rule in the next games,” he said. “Always the doctor will check the physical condition of the players. We respect the doctors of the club teams, but it’s important to avoid arguments and misunderstandings.”

Arguments and misunderstandings, though, abound where club and international football are concerned. The two are at cross purposes, coexisting awkwardly in the knowledge that they have become a threat to each other as greed and self-interest have taken hold in the game.

Terry was asked yesterday whether, in the modern age, international football still matters. “I have always said England is the ultimate,” he said. “There is nothing better than playing for your country. You come through the youth system at your club and break into the first team, but once you have done that, the biggest ambition is playing for your country. That’s why the players look forward to playing for their country so much.”

But do they? They take the highs, such as the 5-1 victory over Germany in Munich in 2001 or the 4-1 win way to Croatia in September, but friendly matches no longer appear to figure so prominently on the list of priorities. Terry, having begun by saying such matches are “massively important”, later said that “in four or five years’ time they might disappear”.

Injuries to players while away with their country will serve only to increase the club managers’ dislike of international football. The Walcott injury was a freak occurrence, but that will not prevent it being seized upon as ammunition in the ever more unsavoury conflict between clubs and countries.