Blighty coup a blight on three green fields

Sideline Cut: You see? You see? There is a very good reason why Blighty once ruled the waves, writes Keith Duggan.

Not three weeks after axing the hapless, grinning and perpetually bewildered Steve McClaren, England have unveiled the latest man to lead the Three Lions insignia back to rightful prominence on the world stage. Meanwhile, back in the Land of Saints and Scholars, we have become terribly and perhaps permanently lost in the search for any manager at all in what is becoming the most famous pageant since Fr Ted Crilly ran his Lovely Girls competition.

Ah, you have to hand it to them. The English just do not fool around when it comes to the hiring and firing of their guv'nors. For the past three weeks, several high-profile men took a spin on the carousel outside Lancaster Gate. A few good men and likely lads were scrutinised along the way.

Martin O'Neill (too smart and, regrettably, too excitable), Steve Coppell (too deadpan and morose), Jose Mourinho (too mad), 'Arry Redknapp (too busy talking to the police) and Big Sam Allardyce (the perennial contender, whose name is linked with every post from Real Madrid to running mate for Barack Obama) all had their moment in the sun.

But in the end, the English have looked to Italy and to the chisel-jawed countenance of Fabio Capello, the right-wing, aloof art connoisseur who, they say, does not suffer fools gladly and cares little for the reputation and sensibility of football's superstars. And with a sinking heart, we may have to concede the English may have gotten it perfectly right this time.

It is an odd proposition: Capello and the one-hundred-clicks-a-week club who now line out for England. But the Italian might have the perfect combination of eccentricity, bullishness and vanity to ultimately break the England job rather than have it break him.

By Thursday, word had begun to leak out that Capello had managed to ghost in and out of London without leaving so much as the faintest trace of designer cologne for the sniffer dogs of Fleet Street. They say he dazzled the powerbrokers of the Football Association with his charisma and his plans and, probably, his haute couture.

As George Bush once seduced Tony Blair by promising to one day host him at Camp David for a weekend of cigars and hunting, so Capello probably flattered his putative employers with airy invitations to peruse his art collection, recognised as one of the finest in all of Italy. They say Capello is so odd that he reads books and likes to hide behind bushes to ambush bitter pressmen who have criticised him in print.

Capello is infamously impatient with the endless peripheral talk about the beautiful game, once rhetorically asking, "Why should I waste my time listening to people who are clearly less intelligent than me?"

The implications of this philosophy for England's players remain to be seen. But it seems obvious the Italian will not attempt to court the Fleet Street mob, whose headlines shaped and bent men like Sven Eriksson and McClaren as a child toys with putty.

Capello has the lineage that appeals to the sense of importance that has hampered English football in the decades since the 1966 World Cup triumph. He had a highly respectable playing career, over a decade of managerial apprenticeship at Milan and then distinctive and controversial stewardships at several of Europe's leading clubs. In addition, he has a keen sense of the shifting political spectrum of Europe, his father, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, having instilled in him a ferocious work ethic.

In addition to favouring a blue-collar attitude to football, he seems to have honed a political worldview that suggests had he been born two generations earlier he would have stood at Mussolini's shoulder.

And yet for all the sophistication, he is nothing if not a hard-nosed football man and his past feuds with big reputations make one quiver in anticipation of his engagements with England's heroes. His most famous declamation must be when he informed Paolo Di Canio: "You are an ugly **** and your head looks like a penis." Modern art indeed.

The mind boggles at what he might say to poor Wayne Rooney if and when they have a blow-up on the training field.

But the big deal about Capello is his winning record. That is what England needs. As his old pal Arrigo Sacchi once said of Capello, "He does not see beauty in the game."

Which prompts the question: why didn't Fabio come and manage Ireland? Nobody sees beauty in our game. And we like it just fine that way. We have a rich history of oppression. We have art. I am sure the FAI would have arranged for Fabio to have the keys to the Lane Gallery whenever he wanted them - hell, they would even have put in a bed so he could sleep there.

And we have high-brow lads if he had required a bit of enlightenment and existential chat after a morning pondering the enigma that is John O'Shea. He could have tagged along with Eamon Dunphy and Noel Pearson for fine wine and song at the Shelbourne. He could have had a guest spot on The View, talking dance with Roy Foster. We could have learned about Pádraig Pearse and all our hardcore romantic patriots.

The man would probably have started wearing a green beret - albeit with ineffable Italian chic. He could - and would - have charmed us by uttering a few words as Gaeilge in heavily accented Italian. He could have led us to improbable triumphs, culminating in World Cup quarter-final triumph against Italy. He would have been given the freedom of Dublin and palled around with Liam Neeson and Edge.

Of course, all this is water under the Bridge of Sighs. Fabio is gone, baby, gone.

And you know as well as I that not only is he going to change the England football team, he will transform the whole bloody culture of the place. The Blighty Renaissance starts now. My guess is that Gordon Brown will be wearing designer spectacles by January. You cannot have the national football manager looking more intellectual than the Prime Minister.

In five years' time, England could well be world champions and a huge bust of Capello be unveiled in Trafalgar Square.

And what of the Boys in Green? It has become glaringly obvious the Republic of Ireland football team will never have a manager again. My guess is the RTÉ panel will take turns manning the sidelines for our next campaign. That might work just fine - and think of the enjoyment in watching Dunphy bitterly damning his own coaching.

At least it would keep the thing fresh and interesting. After all, for the bones of a century we have tried appointing managers and it has rarely worked. Giants like Capello aren't really interested in our three green fields. All this talk of big hitters like Mourinho or Marcello Lippi taking up the Irish cause is just Celtic Tiger delusion. We are a small football nation and there is no sign of us ever having a leader again.

England has her lion-tamer now and all we can do is listen to the roars.