Seems like the press backlash has begun, before we've even kicked a ball in South Africa. Does Paul Hayward have a point, or do we still have faith in Fabio?
Fabio Capello told his personal interpreter he would not be needed in South Africa and then asked David Beckham to come along as a "coach" (some outlets said) or intermediary between coaching staff and players. The difference is oceanic. It is one thing to imagine Becks explaining to Lamps and Coley what the gaffer wants and another to picture him barking orders from the coaching zone while Capello stays on his bench.
That must be it: Beckham is The Translator, the new José Mourinho. Capello's halting English will pass through the Football Association's World Cup bid ambassador and come out as stuff the chaps can comprehend.
Porto, Chelsea and Inter await. Beckham as England "coach" is preposterous, as even he would concede as he pursues the Messianic twin-track of trying to win two World Cups at once. As news broke that Capello has invited him on to his backroom staff in South Africa, Beckham was handing England's 2018/2022 file to Fifa. Only he could advance so spectacularly on two fronts.
Capello thought he could rewrite our crazy culture but this spring he has surrendered to reality. The job is not the one he signed up for. The manager is no longer the absolutist who diagnosed a collapse of confidence and was sure he had the cure.
His overtures to the injured former captain imply a dip in faith in the current arrangement, or certainly in Stuart Pearce, who is meant to be the house yeoman in an Italian coaching set-up. The implication is that Capello is casting around for magic ingredients and is unsure of his communication lines. To the public Beckham remains an inspirational figure. Be assured, though, that Steven Gerrard, John Terry and Wayne Rooney don't need his motivational promptings to tell them how important a World Cup is. If anything, they may resent his teacher's pet status with Capello: an arrangement they endured too frequently under Sven-Goran Eriksson.
No wonder the martinet has turned pragmatist. Like all England managers pre-World Cup, Capello has dragged his cart round the Premier League clubs, calling: "Bring out your dead." From the start he warned the Wembley congregation that England's chances would hinge on how many of his best players still had both legs attached in June. Yet the strategic shifts we have observed from him amount to a complete re-scripting of the policies he laid out in his early days. He is the Nick Clegg of international management.
First, Capello said there would be no room for the injured. This proved to be hopelessly idealistic. Ledley King, who has chronic knee trouble and can't train between games, will almost certainly be on the plane, as will Gareth Barry, if his ankle mends, and Rio Ferdinand, Terry and Rooney, who are all carrying knocks. There is no will-he-won't-he metatarsal drama to keep the back pages happy but unquestionably there will be damaged goods on the flight to Rustenburg on 2 June.
Second, the high command were adamant that players needed to be shining regularly for their clubs to earn international consideration. Used like a baseball bat against Michael Owen, this article of faith went the way of the Capello Index, aborted in less than 24 hours. Emile Heskey, who has not scored since February, is a non-impact sub at Aston Villa. Peter Crouch fights for a starting place at Spurs and Jermain Defoe keeps being substituted. Elsewhere in the provisional 30-man squad, Manchester United's Michael Carrick has been sent to a kind of Siberia, Shaun Wright-Phillips is a Manchester City also-ran and Theo Walcott has yet to recover the scintillating rhythms that brought him an England hat-trick in Croatia.
Third, while banning mobiles, enforcing meal-times, imposing dress codes and slashing shopping time, Capello waged war on distractions before signing up to a player-ranking system backed by an online gaming firm. This would at least have spared Beckham the onerous task of passing round the dressing room with the ratings ("it's a six for you, today, Wazza", because the players could have seen them on their laptops within two hours of the final whistle. Not straight marks from Capello, it should be said, but assessments spewed out by software he had helped to write. This was his inevitable Adam and Eve moment and he bit the apple.
No single foreign sage could hope to shape the English culture in his own image and Capello now appears resigned to that truth. He is a newcomer to international tournaments, remember, and like every one before him he has discovered that qualifying campaigns are not reliable auditions. Things change. Out of a cold May sky, for example, comes the revelation that he would consider switching to three at the back for the first time in the event of injury to Glen Johnson, the only specialist right-back in Gary Neville's inexplicable absence.
Capello started out with papal certainties but almost all are now dismantled. His record says he brings flexibility with his great wisdom.
England's history says desperation will always play its part.
