England expects as Fab decision made

SEEN from the Continent, the English are an unpredictable lot. Apart from speaking loudly in restaurants and being inexplicably fond of bad lager, they have a tendency to deceive their allies, but they themselves are easily deceived by appearances.

Perfide Angleterre — “treacherous England ” — is the phrase the French have used for the past 700 years.

Para Inglês Ver — “for the English to see” – say Portuguese, to describe pulling the wool over your eyes.

When it comes to football, it seems there is a similar unpredictability.

While the Premier League has a fair claim to being the best in the world, if there was a trophy for underperformance, it would probably have been won outright by England over the past 30 years.

“Too many foreign players,” is the common cry —– although England underperformed with similar panache when there wasn’t a foreign name to be seen (unless you count Matt Le Tissier).

Not enough English coaches is a more convincing argument. The last one to win the title was Howard Wilkinson, in 1992, the year before the Premier League was invented.

It is a telling fact that when Sven Goran Eriksson landed the England job, there was much agonising in the London papers about a foreigner taking over.

This time the only question has been which foreigner? Would he be Portuguese or Italian? Not surprisingly, the FA’s decision to appoint Fabio Capello has been universally approved in his own country.

On Sunday night no less a figure than Silvio Berlusconi — basking in the glory of Milan’s World Club Championship victory against Boca Juniors, and once again acting as prime minister in waiting — hailed Capello’s appointment as the ultimate compliment to Italian football.

“Like all Italians I’m proud about Capello being taken on by England,” said Berlusconi (who once gave Capello the push).

“England are the fathers of the game, and it shows our football is the best in the world.”

As so often with the silver-tongued Silvio, the truth is a bit more complex.

Capello’s last achievement in Italian football was winning back-to-back titles with Juventus. And his last appearance in Italian football was when Juventus were stripped of those titles for match-fixing. Last season he won La Liga but when Real Madrid dismissed him — absurdly — for “lack of style”, there was no great rush by Italian clubs to bring him back as coach.

Capello is a winner, but like Jose Mourinho in Portugal, he frightens people as well as inspiring them.

How he will cope with the PR side is anyone’s guess. His English is limited, though he has been quietly working on it since the time when he was Alex Ferguson’s chosen successor at Old Trafford, and none of his back-up team are linguists either.

Beppe Severgnini, a top Italian journalist who has made the occasional appearance at Trinity College Dublin (in a speaking rather than a playing capacity) believes Capello will succeed — at least in taking England to the World Cup finals in 2010. But he also issued the following warnings:

1. “The media demand respect, even if they often don’t give you any. In Italy, journalists will cover up for you — in England, it’s not possible to choose your interviewers or avoid those who have the nasty habit of asking you proper questions.”

2. “It’s not enough to have a good knowledge of English it has to be excellent. The English are spoiled when it comes to speaking — they expect to understand and be understood. Of course Capello could always say “I don’t give a damn, I’ll speak Italian or Spanish,”, but it wouldn’t be a good start to the job.”

3. “The myth of the English being cold and unemotional is just that — a myth. Diana’s death in 1997 was a watershed. It’s the same with football, and the long wait for success has made the English fan like a string of a violin. The player had better be good.”

4. “Don’t mention Berlusconi. Berlusconi is Capello’s pal, former employer, political inspiration — but not the most popular person in the UK and London is a liberal-minded city. The relationship with Mr B may be helpful in Italy or Spain; in Britain it’s better to choose another topic.”

5. “Try and stop the Italians calling you things like Sir Fabio or Lord Capello. Sooner or later it will be picked up in the local papers and you will look a fool. The anti-Italian banter will come sooner or later. The only way to deal with it is to work well, be open and behave loyally — just as that great little man Gianfranco Zola managed to do for example.”

Sound advice, and in deference to Beppe, who’s also written a book about the English, this column will henceforth refer only to Don Fabio. That being his honorary title in Spain — and nothing whatever to do with Sicily.