Football Food For Thought / Ralph Ellis / 08 September 2008 /

Ralph Ellis discusses the man who has won everything that was up for grabs at club level but has so far failed to covert his pedigree to the international arena as England continue to struggle.

From the moment Fabio Capello took charge at the FA, we heard one phrase constantly trumpeted about the Italian - how he had a "winning mentality".

It was the phrase used by Brian Barwick announcing his appointment, and then picked up by player after player as they gave their press conferences to discuss the new regime. Oh yes, we will be ok because the new manager has a "winning mentality". And on the face of it, Capello´s record appeared to back that up. After all he had won the domestic championship with every single one of the four top clubs he has managed in Milan, Madrid, Rome and Turin.

But nobody has yet explained properly to me exactly what a "winning mentality" is. And Capello is clearly at the moment beginning to learn some hard facts about managing England´s national team as opposed to the clubs where has exerted his dominant personality before.

For a start it´s a lot easier to be the hard taskmaster when you work with players every day. You can follow a rollocking one day with a bit of gentle explanation the next, and your message gradually gets across. At a club - and especially when that club is AC Milan, Real Madrid, Roma or Juventus - you can ship out the player who doesn´t want to understand the message and buy in somebody better.

With the national team it´s not so simple as Capello is rapidly finding out. He may have been up and down off his bench ranting and raving all through the first half against Andorra on Saturday night but there´s no real evidence yet that his message is getting across. And when the man with the "winning mentality" just starts moaning after a game against one of Europe´s smallest ski resorts about their defensive tactics it´s time to wonder if that was actually a "whingeing mentality"!

Capello looks as if he´s beginning to feel the heat, and that is going to transfer to his players. We´re heading for Zagreb on Wednesday with England looking no nearer to finding an effective team. The miserable performance against Andorra reminds me of the days when Don Revie used to organise a practice match for England against a Wembley pub team the day before internationals with the aim of building his side´s confidence. More often than not the internationals ended up scraping a 2-0 victory and the Dog and Duck went away celebrating a moral victory.

England are now [3.4] to win in Croatia, and for all my delight at tipping Andy Murray to land even bigger odds against Rafael Nadal I can´t find a reason to be patriotic about this one - especially as while Capello was bemoaning Andorra´s tactics, Slaven Bilic´s team were merrily removing Kazakhastan from their path with a strolling 3-0 victory. The most optimistic bet I can come up with for Wednesday night is [8.4] for Capello´s team to scramble a goalless draw.

Mind you, England are not the only country to find that internationals aren´t always as straightforward as they should be. I was in Spain on Saturday night and watched the locals agonising as their European Champions stuttered before David Villa´s late goal beat Bosnia in Group 5. And France are rapidly looking like replacing the Spanish as the perennial under-achievers of world football, after losing 3-1 to Austria in Vienna. Boss Raymond Domenech is now under serious pressure, making Serbia a massively appealing bet at [6.4] to win in Paris on Wednesday and push him closer to the exit door. Manchester United´s Patrice Evra ismaking the sort of doubting noises we´ve come to associate with England players!

Italy also needed an injury time goal from Antonio Di Natale to beat another set of minnows from Cyprus. They now play Georgia on Wednesday, and having watched the pride of the players from that war torn country in Wales a couple of weeks ago I wouldn´t rule out them causing an upset. The Italians are [1.16] and if you fancy a gamble that´s worth laying.

Mind you, the Georgians didn´t do too much against the Republic of Ireland at the weekend. Maybe the Irish FA got the right Italian when they tempted Giovanni Trapattoni to join them! Certainly the reports suggest that his side played with freedom and confidence as Kevin Doyle and Glenn Whelan got their goals. Their next trip is to Montenegro and [2.5] looks an appealing price for an away win.

In contrast the chance to back Russia at [1.33] to beat Wales is free money, however much John Toshack tried to talk up some of the performances in Saturday´s 1-0 win over Azerbaijan. And as for Scotland, after losing in Macedonia they won´t travel to Iceland with enough confidence to justify backing them at [2.5].

So that all takes us back to England again. In form Croatia, Euro 2008 quarter-finalists and at home to a team they beat twice in the last qualifying programme, should be the bet of the week at as long as [2.46]. It only raises the moral dilemna for most of us on whether we are willing to bet against our own team. Ah well - it all depends on whether we´ve got a "winning mentality", I suppose.

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