A good week for Fabio Capello but England must look to the future now

Where the England team is concerned critical opinion is as changeable as the wind, one moment a howling gale the next a benign breeze. After the World Cup fiasco it appeared that Fabio Capello's future as coach would be numbered in days, but this week he confirmed he would stand down after completing the remaining two years of his contract and the reaction amounted to little more than a shrugging acceptance of the obvious. Of course timing was everything. Convincing victories against Bulgaria and Switzerland as England began the task of qualifying for the 2012 European Championship suddenly made the idea of another two seasons of Capello more bearable than it seemed two months ago. For the humiliation of Bloemfontein read the blessing of Basle. And at least the Football Association now has a timescale as it considers Capello's successor, having already declared, not altogether wisely, that the next England manager must be English. Certainly he should be able to speak better English than the present incumbent but insisting on an Englishman would appear to narrow the choice to the point of invisibility. For a start the two Premier League managers most likely to come into the frame, Roy Hodgson and Harry Redknapp, are already into their 60s while the few others spend more time thinking about the 40 points needed to avoid relegation than winning World Cups. Either way the FA needs to address itself to creating a system more likely to produce future English-born England managers. When Ron Greenwood retired from the job after the 1982 World Cup he had set up an England coaching dynasty of likely successors, among them Bobby Robson and Terry Venables, each of whom managed to get the team to the semi-finals of major tournaments – Robson at Italia 90, Venables at Euro 96. But the idea, while it persisted in spirit for a time after Glenn Hoddle had taken over from Venables, never really caught on with the FA which even now tends to make knee-jerk appointments as a reaction to what has gone before. Maybe dynasties are no longer practicable. The German line of succession, in which the job of national coach was handed down from Sepp Herberger to Helmut Schön to Jupp Derwall, worked smoothly for decades so long as the team was successful but foundered when West Germany flopped in the 1984 European Championship, whereupon Derwall gave way to Franz Beckenbauer who, while he had been an icon as a player, did not even possess basic coaching qualifications. The increase in the size and spread of international tournaments and the intense media scrutiny to which players and coaches are subjected has made long-term planning much more difficult. That said, the certain knowledge that before long the FA will again be short-listing candidates for the England job should further concentrate minds as the nation's bid to host the 2018 World Cup approaches the December deadline. If the next tournament but one does come to this country the game's ruling body will have eight years to cultivate a crop of coaches to match the Wengers, Ancelottis and, yes, the Capellos now holding sway. In fact seven of the team that finished the Switzerland game on Tuesday were from clubs managed by Italians – the six Manchester City men plus Chelsea's Ashley Cole. Thankfully Capello ignored the vuvuzelas honking on about Wayne Rooney's state of mind following newspaper allegations about the player's private life. Rooney must have known what the Sunday papers had in store when he dominated the qualifier against Bulgaria on the Friday, so it was no surprise when he turned in another impressive performance against the Swiss four days later. Ever since footballers achieved pop star status they have been subjected to the sort of lurid gossip which sells newspapers. The stuff now appearing smacks of the scandal-mongering which Hollywood lived with in its heyday. Once Hoddle had refused to drop Paul Gascoigne, who was never quite football's Fatty Arbuckle, following allegations that he had beaten up his wife it was clear that England team selections would not be decided by heavy-breathing headlines in the squaloids. Incidentally, one of the principal heroes of England's latest wins has barely received a mention. So let's hear it for Frank Lampard's hernia, the catalyst which freed up Steven Gerrard, who until recently had been performing for his country like a man with an ill-fitting truss. Lampard may return but surely not to cramp Gerrard's free-ranging style.