THERE is a famous scene in The Godfather where Al Pacino as Michael Corleone explains away another murder to his brother.
"It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business," he says.
The same unflinching manner. The same thin and grim smiles were in evidence after England's 2-1 victory against Switzerland as Fabio Capello spoke.
"The things I do have nothing to do
with personal feelings for players," said England's new Italian manager through a translator. "Everything is borne out of reasoning."
It was an explanation which will not have brought much comfort to Michael Owen, who now faces the prospect of his international career sliding into cold storage.
Nor to David Beckham, whose name was chanted by the Wembley fans but which was an issue Capello dismissed with little more than a Latin shrug.
Nor, you suspect, to Sir Alex Ferguson, who must have watched with simmering discontent as Manchester United's Wes Brown and Rio Ferdinand toiled for the full 90 minutes and Wayne Rooney for 87 in what he would have considered a meaningless friendly.
But let's hand it to Capello. He is quite possibly the first England manager since Sir Alf Ramsey to put England first and last.
The first to recognise that the job cannot contain compromise and must not indulge reputations. And that a £6million-a-year pay packet comes with a responsibility to make hard decisions.
At last it seems England have a manager man enough to take them, even if the presence of Matthew Upson and Brown in Capello's first team was not always easy to fathom.
And yet we knew all that. Barely a story has been written about Capello this past month which did not contain the words 'fearless' and 'ruthless'.
The Football Association has got its iron man, no question. A man who seems genuinely bemused at the fuss surrounding players clearly he believes are no longer the heartbeat of England's international team .
But does the FA have a man who can mask the technical deficiencies of the English game well enough to win a World Cup? Do they have their miracle worker?
The most revealing thing about Capello's first match in charge was not that it endorsed the need for his appointment, although it did, but that it reinforced the urgency for the root-and-branch inquiry into the shortcomings of the English game which the FA promised when Steve McClaren was sacked.
It is doubtful if Capello, in approaching half a century in the game, has ever played in or been in command of a team with such glaring deficiencies in the basic techniques of controlling and passing a football. You did not need a coaching pro-licence, or a £6million salary, to recognise that. It was there, stark and depressing, in the fact that not one England player, certainly not Ashley Cole nor Gareth Barry, was adept at finding a man in a similar coloured shirt. Not even from a range of ten metres.
That is why the promised overhaul of how football is taught at grass roots and junior level must not be forgotten.
But that is not Capello's concern. The Italian's task is to work around the technical limitations, to find a formation and a system which makes England a better team, regardless of the individuals. To that end he will have taken several positives from his first victory.
For one, that he has talented front men in Rooney and Joe Cole. For another, that England's defence might not be Italianesque in its miserliness, but it is naturally robust with Owen Hargreaves a more athletic back-four protector than Barry.
It is early days and Capello doubtless will experiment more against France in Paris next month and in the remaining friendly fixtures before World Cup qualifying begins in September.
Meanwhile, Capello's aide Franco Baldini has spelled out that England players need to improve their technique and transfer their club form to the national team.
Baldini, the England team's general manager, said there were some positives from the win over Switzerland, but there were shortcomings in technical skills.
He picked out the tendency of players to hit long passes as one problem – and that even Premier League players needed intensive practise to improve.
"We are trying to play more with the ball because the English culture is after two, three passes to hit a long ball," said Baldini.
"We have to try and play more. We have to play with more confidence because it's easier to play when the ball is at your feet. So we have to try and incorporate this confidence in our game to give us more chances.
"We need more technical skill. We have to practise, practise, practise. Unfortunately, we have the players just for a few days every two months and so, on this occasion, we had four training sessions. Maybe some managers here will not approve of this, but we have to try at all times so that we can do that."
Baldini insists he and Capello are not trying to turn England into a team that plays in the Italian way, but to reproduce their club form on the international stage.
He added: "England have to play like England. But maybe a little bit better.
Many times, we think about why some players are so important for their club – not just domestically but in European competition too – but they are less effective for England.
"What we have to work out is why that is. Maybe with their clubs, they play with less pressure than they play with for England.
"Pressure can be a good thing, but it can also have a negative effect, so we have to manage this. It's not a question of their desire. We know they want to play and perform, but it's a problem we want to address. This week has been very important for us so we can see things at first hand."
Much has been made of the strict rules imposed by Capello on the squad, including banning golf at the training camp, dressing smartly, sitting down to meals together, and restricting mobile phones and flip-flops to players' rooms.
Baldini though is surprised the rules have drawn so much attention – they are the norm in Italian clubs.
"You talk about a new regime but it's normal," he said. "If you are at the table with the rest of the players, it's best to switch off your phone. There are no special rules, it's just normal. I don't see anything special. It's normal just to help the players stay together."
The full article contains 1103 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
