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The Big Interview

With Capello it's "My way or the highway" says David Platt

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Italy 90 World Cup star and former under-21 boss David Platt gives us the lowdown on Fabio Capello - a manager whose career he has followed very closely

Fabio Capello has made a whirlwind start to his new job with England by watching four games in five days. Betfair asked former England Under 21 boss David Platt, who played for four years in Italy when Capello first made his name at AC Milan, about the new England boss and how he'll adapt to international football.

What do you know of Capello's methods and reputation in Italy?

When I went to Bari in 1991 it was the first year he took over at Milan. I don't think anybody knew a lot about him as he had come through from working in their youth set-up. People in Italy thought the team that Arrigo Saachi had just left were at the end of their cycle. Instead he won three league titles on the spin and went unbeaten for one whole season, and won the European Cup as well. Taking Milan at that time was a tad different to what he's doing now, that's for sure. If he'd had the slightest slip-up, if he'd finished second just by a point, it would have been a failure - especially in Italy, especially at that time. He not only took that on but took it up a level.

So how do you see him doing in this job?

One thing I'd say is if you look at his career he went from Milan to Real Madrid and won in his first year, he then came back and joined Roma - and going to Roma and winning the League at Roma was like going to somewhere like Tottenham here now and winning the League. It was that dramatic. If you talked about Juande Ramos now and said he would win the League with Tottenham next year you'd be a laughing stock. But that's basically what Capello did at Roma. So what he has done is shown that whatever methods he uses to get a winning mentality into the club or team he's with happens very quickly.

But how easily can that adapt to international football? You managed both a club with Nottingham Forest and the England Under 21 team. What are the differences?

That's the only concern for me about Capello. Having success at a club might be completely different from having success with a country. With England he has the group of players he has. He can't go out and buy an Italian, a Frenchman, or a Brazilian, in fact he can't buy anybody. He can't go to his Sporting Director and say: 'I want to play in this manner, go and find me that player in that position with those characteristics'. He can only go and look at the English players that we have and ask himself: 'Will they fit in to my team?

How does that affect his approach, then?

He has to decide if he looks for players to fit his favourite system, or will he go for his best players and then adapt the system to suit them? I think he will go for the latter. When I went into the Under 21s I thought it was best to go along those lines rather than deciding the way you want to play then going to find the players. You might finish up with players with the characteristics that suit the way you want to play, but they are not good enough. For instance if I had wanted to play a total pressing game with the Under 21s when I first took over it would have been very difficult with people like Sean Davies, Michael Carrick and David Dunn. You would have been going away from their strengths. You'd have looked at somebody like David Prutton and said: 'I want to play a total pressing game so he plays'. But should he be in front of David Dunn or Michael Carrick? They have more qualities in terms of international football. So I think Capello has to look at what he has available and then adapt his methods and system to suit those players.

A lot been made of his Capello's discipline. Is there a difference in handling players when you only have them for a couple of days every month?

I'm not sure there's a difference, but there might well be a difference in terms of their reaction to how you handle them. They come and you might deal with them in a completely different way to how their club does. In a club you might have a player that you have for a six month period where in that time you get to know everything about them. Because of that you can then deal with them in the right manner. It might be the arm round the shoulder, or the kick up the backside. I had a situation with a player at Forest where it took me longer than six months to realise that he could handle criticism, but not in front of other people. I couldn't criticise him in front of his team mates because it ended with a row between us, which didn't help anything. But if I took him into a room on his own, and showed him the kind of things where he was lacking or might have been concentrating more, he took it on board. In the end I had a really positive relationship and effect on the particular player, but it took all that time to suss it out. When I went to the Under 21s I was dealing with players preparing for a game for a maximum of six to seven days. If you think that a six month period at a club while you learn about players is 180 days - then at international level 180 days is about four years! No matter how you deal with them and mould them, they then disappear and go back to a football club where they might be dealt with in a different way. You have to very quickly find out who responds to what.

How big a worry is that?

The one thing you know for sure is that Capello isn't stupid. You can say he has a hard line, and a reputation of it's my way or the Highway and all that, but I also think he likes his players to perform and he'll get the best out of them. There certainly is a method and a way of saying: 'This is the way it is going to be'. I'm sure he'll make that work. One thing on his side is that the players will want desperately to be successful because this summer will hurt them. I know how much it cut me up in 1994 - I couldn't watch the World Cup because we should have been part of it and we weren't. The England players will have that this year and they'll do anything to make sure they are at the next World Cup.

Thanks David, we've got a free £50 bet for your favourite charity.

I fancy that after holding Arsenal to a draw Tottenham will have the confidence to cause Chelsea some problems, so I'll back the draw between Chelsea and Spurs at [3.6]. I'd like the winnings to go to the Rhys Daniels Trust which helps parents of terminally ill children who need to live away from home to be near specialist hospitals. It's a cause I've supported for about six years now - full details are on www.rhysdanielstrust.org