Which player admits he prefers girls and drinking to England’s stern new dominatrix?

While England’s players and bureaucrats are finding themselves secretly excited by life at Miss Fabio Capello’s Victorian boarding school, one of his old pupils has publicly announced that the Capello regime was not for him.” His becoming the England manager was the best thing that could have happened,” said former Real Madrid flop, Antonio Cassano. “Because that way I’ll never have to see him again.”

Mr Cassano, who now earns a living at Sampdoria, spent two years in Madrid (one under Capello), during which he contributed just two goals. He recently confessed to an Italian chat show, however, that he was driven to the dark side by Mr Capello’s taking against him. “In Madrid I lived too much at night,” he said. “I hardly slept, there were so many hot girls…in the end I had to choose between football and the good life.”

Although he ultimately plumped for football, the good life left its mark. “When I came to Sampdoria, I weighed 90 kilos. Now I weigh 81 and I’m enjoying playing. I see football as 90 per cent a game, and the other ten per cent as a job that gives me money. I’ve spent 17 years trying to get where I am, and only eight as a millionaire,” he explained, leaving no one any the wiser.