Brazil 1-0 England match report: The Daily Mirror Verdict

TIME IS running out for Fabio Capello and England, just seven months before judgement begins.

Yet while Capello’s shadow side were given the desert runaround the England boss probably expected in his heart of hearts, at least they now know the minimum standards they will have to reach next summer.

Capello’s frustrations as he prowled round his technical area in the Khalifa Stadium told the story as graphically as any of the many challenges his players shirked on the pitch.

The Italian knew his side were likely to be second-best technically to Dunga’s ball-huggers but he had anticipated fight and bite from the second-stringers battling for their chance to join the biggest party of all.

What he got, instead, was timidity and caution, sleepy defending and comatose attacking, a side that handed the initiative from first kick and never really got it back, shifting sands when he wanted substance.

No matter that Nilmar’s peerless header, just 80 seconds after the break as he stole between the hapless pairing of Wes Brown and Matthew Upson, meant that statistically there was one moment of composure between the two sides.

In truth, the divide was as wide as the Arabian Gulf that separates Doha from Bahrain and a concerned and angered Capello did not try to hide that fact.

“I learned a lot in experience of playing against a team like Brazil,” said Capello. “I learned about the level of some players when you play against a team like that.

“We played too slowly when we had the ball. They defend well. When you get the ball they move quickly to get back into position and always get eight players behind the ball.

“If you don’t play quickly and move towards the goal, it is difficult to create chances against them.

“The movement of the ball was too slow. I was frustrated at us losing possession. They were pressing a lot and every tackle was strong.

“We lost a lot of tackles. They won the ball. We were not strong enough to play against this Brazil team, not strong enough physically.”

It was, as Capello conceded, salutary to see the ease which which Gareth Barry and Jermaine Jenas were brushed aside in central midfield, how weakly Shain Wright-Phillips played, how simple the rocket-fired Nilmar found it to ease into the gaping spaces behind Brown that Upson never filled, the inability to prevent Lucio sauntering forward up the back.

Brazil coach Dunga ventured an unlikely reason, even as he dismissed Capello’s technical assessment of his team.

Dunga said: “We are in balance technically and tactically. And the physical condition is something that comes from the Brazilian population. Because our height is increasing it has brought to Brazil good stature and also physical agility.

“If Capello said we always had eight behind the ball, well, when we got the ball they had 11 behind it. You need to learn how to dribble!

“That’s the game. You have to defend and attack. That’s the way we play. We put eight players back behind the ball so that when we get it we try to find the space to attack compact teams.”

In truth, even if Kaka was barely at the camel races and Luis Fabiano’s spot-kick miss after Brown’s blunder to let in Nilmar left Ben Foster lucky to stay on the pitch was a horror-show, Capello had every reason to get the hump.

At the end, jacket back on, Capello went on to the pitch to shake the hands of his players but for the likes of Brown, the ever-valiant Jenas and Darren Bent - who touched the ball just 11 times in his 54 minutes - it was surely to wish them farewell.

The hope, especially with the likes of John Terry, Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and even Emile Heskey having demonstrated they give England a more physical, hustling, powerful dimension, is that the events of Saturday will be as misleadingly deceptive, for the right reasons this time, as the corresponding match four years ago.

When Sven Goran Eriksson’s side left Geneva after completing a last-gasp win over Argentina, the country began to believe in the Golden Generation, dreams left tattered and torn in Germany a few months later as they limped out.

Few England fans would have harboured such ambitions in Doha, even if only Barry and skipper Wayne Rooney - arguably the one player in white who could have worn that canary yellow shirt - will be in Capello’s starting side in South Africa.

That, though, was a point the Italian wanted to make as he prepared to discover England’s initial rivals in next month’s draw in Cape Town.

Capello added: “We played against virtually the best 11 of Brazil, missing only one player. And, come on, this wasn’t our best 11.

“Yes, maybe even my best team is maybe not as strong as Brazil and not as technical as Spain.

“We have to stay somewhere in the middle, between them. We have to be good technically but also strong enough. But my best team has some different qualities, qualities that are different and make us better.

“Don’t worry, we can play, we can play. I’m sure of that.”

The fans, however, will worry about the consequences if the injury curse does strike again in the build-up to next summer, as it has so often in the past.

As Capello admitted: “Being without two or three players is different to being without 10 or 11, like we were against Brazil.

“Of course, though, certain players are very important and we hope they are at their best at the right moment. But it is the same for all the teams. Everyone has some players who are very important to that team, all the teams.”

Rooney, Gerrard, Terry and Lampard - as well as Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole - are essential elements of Capello’s side. Without them, we can forget it. Let us just hope Doha was not the shape of things to come.