Why it's now up to 'monster' Fabio to prove US wrong for doubting HIM

By Oliver Holt

Published 08:02 03/09/10

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The predicament that Fabio Capello and his England football team find themselves in today has nothing to do with portrayals of gods and monsters, whatever the Italian may say.

The criticism that swirls around them as they prepare to embark on a new qualifying campaign tonight is not about turning a man from Zeus into Frankenstein on a whim.

It is not about the agendas and vendettas of the English press, however convenient it might be for Capello to suggest that it is.

The Italian is not at the stake at Wembley this evening because of words that have been typed into a computer.

He is there because he put himself there. He is there, quite simply, because he went to South Africa promising to get England to the World Cup Final and failed dismally.

And now, no matter that he is 64 and one of the greatest managers of his generation, he finds himself with an awful lot to prove and not much time to prove it. Only a fool would have criticised Capello for the way he masterminded the World Cup qualifying campaign.

And only a fool would have praised him for the series of ­catastrophic misjudgments that led to England’s shockingly bad performances once they arrived in South Africa.

An awkward truth confronts Capello and those happy few who seem to have been able to wipe from their minds what happened in Rustenburg, Cape Town and ­Bloemfontein.

Doing well in the qualifying campaign for a major tournament counts for nothing if you fail ­spectacularly on the bigger stage. That – and the fact that the ­tournament occurred two short months ago – is why the memories of England’s World Cup ­embarrassment matter more than what Capello achieved in ­qualifying.

And that is also why tonight’s game against Bulgaria, the first hurdle in England’s attempt to make it to Euro 2012, feels more like the start of an ordeal rather than an adventure.

Capello did his best to alter that perception yesterday when he sat down to talk to the media at The Grove hotel in Hertfordshire, England’s headquarters.

He looked more relaxed and upbeat than he had before and after England’s friendly against Hungary last month.

He said that being under pressure was nothing new to him. He had ­experienced it in difficult second spells at both AC Milan and Real Madrid.

“You have to fight and I am a fighter,” Capello said.

“Usually, pressure brings the best out of me. I hope it does this time, too.”

But he is in a no-win situation tonight. Even though his side is depleted by injuries, if England beat a weak Bulgaria team, a team thrashed 4-1 by Cyprus this time last year, so what?

If England are beaten, either tonight or against Switzerland in Basel on Tuesday, Capello will probably lose his job and another chapter of English underachievement will come to an end.

It is still hard to dodge the feeling that ­something of Capello’s aura and authority was lost in South Africa.

Now he seems ­diminished.

Amidst his vows to fight on yesterday, he returned again and again to his gods and monsters theme.

He also returned to his fanciful assertion that if a Uruguayan referee had awarded Frank Lampard’s goal against Germany, then everything would have been different.

“We lost one game in the World Cup, against Germany, after one big mistake for the referee,” he said.

“You don’t remember this. I think so.

“But after this, your opinion about me changed completely. You wrote a lot of things different.

“But I live with this situation. It’s no problem for me. I live. Sorry.

“You are a lot of managers. I have read what you wrote.

“You have to play different styles, yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Before this game, I never read these different things.”

The England manager lost patience then and threw his arms up in the air in a gesture of frustration.

“Anyway,” he added, “now we spoke enough about Fabio Capello.”

He got up from his chair then, ­Frankenstein’s monster in a tracksuit, aiming to be Zeus once more.

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