Most agree that Fabio Capello is the man to revive England’s fortunes on the football pitch. His appeal is borne largely from has gone before: unlike his predecessors he is a 'winner’, a disciplinarian and someone who will stand up to the press. But are England supporters, players, WAGS (wives and girlfriends) and journalists really prepared for the cultural changes, technical sophistication and iron discipline that ‘Don Fabio’ is likely to introduce? Philosophy Football’s own brush with Italian management suggests that some kind of transformation might be on the horizon for English football that will match Italia 90, when the nation was moved by Nessun Dorma and Gazza’s tears.

Philosophy Football FC was set up in 1995, not long after our T-shirt company and sponsors sold the first Albert Camus shirts. Adorned with the words of the famous existentialist, we were a bit more politically correct than some, but in all other respects we shared in our formative years the generic values of an ordinary Sunday League team; a few pot bellies, ill-fitting shorts and a desire to get the ball forward. Quickly. We were also spectacularly unsuccessful. At the end of our first season, I received as manager a trophy inscribed with the words: ‘Gone to the Dogs. Bottom of the League. Philosophy Football’.

After a few years meandering in the mediocrity of Sunday league football, things changed dramatically between 1999-2000. We recruited a new generation of players, among them Raj, a left wing defence lawyer destined for the highest political office in Camden; Cornish Al, a not so left wing barrister, subsequently the mercurial veteran of numerous tours and trophies; Rob, an actor and goalkeeping legend; Owen, technologically challenged off the pitch but technically impeccable on it; Paul, literally the ‘defender-as-book-keeper’ in Capello’s estimation of that role; Joe, as robust in his writing as he was in his tackles, and the only football player in the world going by the name of Goober. We also recruited our first Italian player. Filippo Ricci had just moved to London from Rome as football correspondent for Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s leading sports daily. He already owned one of our shirts, received in exchange for an article in When Saturday Comes, the alternative football weekly which also shares an office with Philosophy Football. On a dark and wet September afternoon in Regents Park, Filippo came along to watch us play. Though he only managed to brave the first half of a tight 2-2 draw against Grafton FC, we kept in touch after the match. Desperate to strengthen the squad, I had also just started writing about Italy and I was intrigued by what Filippo might bring to the squad.

So Filippo joined the team, initially as a player, though shortly after, as a kind of joke, he became known as our ‘Direttore Tecnico’, (Director of Football), alongside myself as ‘The Gaffer’. His first contribution, however, had nothing to do with our inadequacies on the pitch but with our sartorial limitations. The mismatching shorts and socks had to go. Shirts had to be tucked in. He was also appalled by our dressing room habits where players would clamber backwards and forwards through the mud to the shower protected by a towel the size of a beer mat. Now, following his example, players clad in shower robes and flip flops had to find somewhere to plug in their hairdryers.

Next, was the replacement of the post-match pint with a team meal at his local tapas bar in Maida Vale. He also had the team around for dinner on numerous occasions. This may be a treat awaiting the England national team, given Capello’s prodigious appetite for good food and wine. Filippo couldn’t understand why British players were so formal and cold towards each other; in Italy, he told us, football is a way of life and players in clubs at all levels have obligations akin to family responsibilities. We never had to deal with the WAGS issue that Capello has to address, but I do remember once being dissuaded from re-arranging a match scheduled for Valentine’s Day on Filippo’s advice that ‘football comes before everything else’.

Following many convivial evenings together and the introduction of more visiting
Italians to the squad (including Marco, an old fashioned number ten; Lele, a Gastroentorologist; Giacomo, a trainee neurologist; Mauro, a DJ and Vito, an over-worked Roman lawyer), the team’s cultural transformation was complete. The indifferent handshake was a thing of the past and I was now confronted with players hugging and kissing each other. And this was before the match started.

But it was the winning mentality that would define Filippo’s – and, as England fans
now hope, Capello’s – contribution. He thought we were insufficiently motivated to win games. ‘Why you say “unlucky”’, he once castigated one of our players who had offered some polite commiseration as a team-mate’s sliced shot flew towards the A3. ‘In Italy we say it’s “crap”’. Following a 1-1 draw against lowly Sporting Falcon, he interrupted the jovial post-match dressing room banter with a rant against the lack of commitment. In the ensuing email debate which followed he explained his reaction: ‘For me this is our Premier League. If we don’t win then we have to feel the pain, so that next time we are better’.

He wasn’t averse to playing pre-match psychological games with the opponents, telling many rival managers, in English that is better than Capello’s, that he was ‘sure you win, cos we have a lot of players missing’. It invariably worked and the new mentality brought a remarkable revival between 2002-2004, when we won three consecutive league championships, twice conquering the Grafton Millennium League and then winning the London Midweek League Division 1.

On the back of this success, we travelled frequently in Europe, with Filippo taking us three times to Rome where this team of British Sunday leaguers played at La Borghesiana (the Italian national team’s training ground), and the Stadio dei Marmi, which has hosted U-21 internationals, in a game against a team of Italian writers that was kicked off by Italian legend Gianni Rivera.

Like Fabio Capello, Filippo is a great lover of British football traditions with a particular affection for the FA Cup. His attempts to enter our club for this illustrious competition failed, however. Unfortunately you need your own stadium and be able to play on Saturday afternoons, an impossibility given he was normally at Stamford Bridge or Highbury at these times.

In early 2006, Filippo left London to take up a new position for the Gazzetta in Madrid, ironically following Capello through his eventful year with the Spanish champions. Six months after his departure we were with him once again playing in a tournament against his new ‘Philosophy Football Madrid’ team, which was setting out on its own adventure. The managerial skills he had practiced with his ‘squadra Inglese’ were being put to good use. Later we went to see Real Madrid lose a vital league match and ate together at the Mesun Txistu, the restaurant favoured by Real’s players. In a quiet corner, eating alone, we could see a gloomy Don Fabio, perhaps reflecting on his predicament and pondering his next move. After the experience of our ‘own Capello’ this could be a bigger challenge than many predict.