England players, look away now! 

Nothing upsets the eyes more than spotting your boss in a non-work situation, and realising that the man who sends chills through your blood every single day of the week spends his summers in tight Speedos, dangling his spindly legs over the side of dreamy sailboats in Italy.  Probably with his topless wife, who’s old enough to be your topless grandmother.

Spoiler bonus: more ‘tiny pants on a boat’ action from a fat Craig Charles look-alike here

Says former mullet enthusiast Chris Waddle

It’s just as well that Fabio Capello hasn’t quite remembered Frank Lampard’s name, as he could be on his way out of the squad if the wishes of former England winger Chris Waddle are observed:

“Capello wants to play a 4-4-2 or a 4-5-1 and you’re not going to get the balance right with Steven Gerrard and Lampard. We know that.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a big player at a club, you’ve got to think about the team and the shape and balance.

“You can’t think ‘he’s a good player for Chelsea; he’s a good player for United; he’s good for Liverpool’.

“Frank is a good player and a good passer but he’s very similar to what we’ve got. If you look at most countries, they have two or three players who they build the team around.

“They put the grafters in to do the work but then they look to the flair players who are going to win football matches.”

Waddle, who has been an ‘expert analyst’ at BBC Radio Five Live for several years, loves nothing better than tearing into the England team (”Every time we play a team with a bit of craft and skill we can’t deal with it,” he said after our World Cup 2006 exit), but has he gone too far by suggesting that Frank should stay at home and braid his dolls’ hair on international matchdays? Or are his comments justified? Read them in full here, then leave votes and comments below.

England gaffer learns the lingo, but doesn’t tell Ray Clemence to stop dancing

At his inaugural England press conference way back in December, Fabio Capello nonchalantly stated that he would learn English fluently in just one month - bearing in mind a great deal of young people come out of the British educational system with little more grasp of the language than a Polish cleaner, this is quite a ballsy claim.

The ‘one month’ boasting, however, turned out to be a worrying display of over-confidence (or perhaps a cruel trick from his interpreter), as Don Fabio was still jabbering away in Italian at the France friendly last month.

But things are looking up for USA friendly in May, as Mr Capello

Fabio ‘happy’ with boring loss

Given the French squad absences and the fact that Scotland were able to come away from the Stade de France last September with a victory, I had high hopes for a credible performance last night. Imagine my disappointment upon watching saw a lacklustre side who, with the possible exception of David Beckham, looked as if they simply couldn’t be bothered. Heads dropped when the goal went in, passing was poor and players like Gerrard were virtually anonymous.

Despite the uninspiring show, Fabio still insisted he was ‘happy’ with the performance. Either his translator failed to detect any sarcasm in his tone, or the bespectacled boss is seeing something I didn’t.

Enjoy the highlights auf Deutsch and leave your comments below.

When judgement day comes, a day when the good lord is going to be swamped, will He look back favourably on the events of this week as the moment English football returned to the path of righteousness, thanks to his faithful servant, Fabio Capello and his disciple Rio Ferdinand? Or will the current vogue for goodness in football melt with the Easter snows?

This particular episode of morality began last Wednesday when Ashley Cole tried to sever Alan Hutton’s leg, then bristled with contempt when referee Mike Riley had the nerve to book him. This display of insolence stoked sufficient national outrage that a feeling of

Does the armband belong back with Terry, or should it grace another bicep?

Stevie G was handed the captaincy in Capello’s first match in charge, but should he be in command at the France game next week, and indeed in the run up to 2010? Other contenders include John Terry (who is as much of a bully as Capello, but prone to injury, unnecessary aggression and illegal parking), Rio Ferdinand (who’ll probably be too busy and ‘merking’ people), David Bentley (a young player who is likely to feature prominently in the future), Micah Richards (whose favourite film is Home Alone) or Frank Lampard (whose favourite film is a tie between Dirty Dancing and The Notebook).

What are your thoughts? Vote now!

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.”

Capello’s first chance to show what he can do - what will the experts make of him?

If Fabio Capello does half as good a job of managing the England team as he has of convincing the press he is the sadistic head of a bleak Victorian educational academy, England should never lose again.

As tonight’s broadcast opens, Lineker’s certainly bought into it. “A new era, a new set of rules … new teacher… pass their exams…” and Ray Stubbs picks up the theme with some headmaster questions to Capello himself. Fabio doesn’t much care for the comparison, though. He prefers “serious” and “professional.”

Lineker tries the first joke of the evening by saying “Stubbsio” knows his “Fabio Capello from his Marty Pellow.”

Hansen, Shearer and Wright complete the studio line-up for Capello’s debut, and all goes much as one might expect - calm, and upbeat. Hansen is head and shoulders above the two Englishmen with strong feelings about David Beckham being denied his hundredth cap. A potential awkward moment looms when Hansen compares Beckham’s tireless, uncomplaining attitude to that of players who “in this day and age players retire for fun.” Premature retiree Alan Shearer is sitting right next to him, but lets the remark slide.

Shearer opens with a bit of a lunge, claiming Fabio “has probably got the best CV of any manager at any time…If he can’t get success we’ve got a problem…a problem bigger than we think there is.”

Ian Wright thinks “We’ve got the right man.”

A cagey start, then. Nothing controversial, but not too much insight either. Seems the pundits are as much in the dark as everyone. Will they be able to resist the educational comparisons at half-time?

Half time: England 1 Switzerland 0. England have an unpleasantly familiar look about them - toothless in front of goal, losing possession too easily, disjointed. The pundits face an awkward dilemma - be positive or be frank?

Hansen - Positive. “They’ve created chances.”

Shearer - Positive. “They’ve tried to get it down and play, and play in the right way.”

Wright - Neutral. He comments on fans booing and the quiet atmosphere. “We’re trying to do it too quickly,” apparently.

They all agree Joe Cole was great and were quite keen on Wayne Rooney’s effort, then come back after a Munich ‘58 tape suddenly very animated about David Bentley. For Shearer, he’s very nearly the man of the match so far. Strange he didn’t mention that earlier. England get off quite lightly.

Reports have abounded in the last couple of weeks of how Capello doesn’t hesitate to defend a 1-0 lead, could the second half be even more dour than the first? Please god, no.

Full time: England 2 Switzerland 1. A much more lively second half, with Rooney the pick, if a bit showboaty at times, and Switzerland didn’t just come to go to Harrods and the Lion King. The flurry of substitutions on both sides disguised some of the cracks in the defence. Gerrard gets Man of the Match, but I thought he only started playing in the last 15 minutes. The pundits will have a bit more to coo over, but that first half was creaky.

Hansen - “The big bonus is Bentley.”

Shearer - Pat on the head for the new man for “lifting a team which was so low in confidence.” “We’ll be OK”

Wright - “Like it.” “The boys didn’t panic.” “Be patient - we’ve got a guy who’s a winner.”

Will he be able to master the English language?

At his official showcasing at FA headquarters, Fabio Capello boasted (through a translator) that he will be able to speak English after just one month of

England’s stern new gaffer has run into a little tax difficulty

The Italian tax detectives have been pointing their magnifying glasses at the bank accounts of Fabio Capello recently, reports Milan’s Il Giornale. Mr Capello, a one-time employee of Juventus, a club whose enthusiasm for football took a back seat to their love of corruption for many years, is being looked at for “suspected tax evasion.”

The manager’s lawyer son Pierfilippo said,