Fabio Capello Prepares for End-of-Season Exams with England

England manager Fabio Capello must face two World Cup Qualifiers before the season ends on June 10. The Italian has come away from a 100 percent record from all five qualifiers encountered so far this season, and must now pass two more tests to round off a perfect year.

The season began with him facing his first assessment as England manager in the sunny climes of Barcelona, where he took charge of the Three Lions for the first time competitively.

However, a nervous display, culminating in a goalless first-half, left many wondering whether Capello was indeed the man to succeed, and whether the £6m-a-year man would oversee England’s safe passage to South Africa in the summer of 2010.

Yet the Italian showed his first glimpse of genius under pressure. Half-time substitute Joe Cole scored two goals within 10 minutes of his introduction and the game was won. Capello had passed his first test, albeit hardly with flying colours.

The next examination was four days later and it was the big one. The one that rumbled the previous incumbent. The one that McClaren failed not once, but twice: Croatia.

It seemed a tough test, maybe even an impossible one given that no team had ever beaten the home side in a competitive match in Zagreb.

Fortunately for England, Fabio Capello showed himself to be quite the bright spark, the front-row student if you will. Either that or he’d somehow cheated and peeked at the answers. Or should that be answer in the singular? Step forward Theo Walcott.

The Arsenal youngster’s superb hat-trick saw Capello romp away with the highest possible grade, A+, or 4-1 in this case. Perhaps not the impossible test after all, some rather harshly suggesting it only appeared so previously when taken and failed by the school dunce.

Kazakhstan visited Wembley for Capello’s first assessment on home soil, and despite Ashley Cole spilling ink on his own paper in his very best Borat impression, it was another easy pass for the Italian maestro, and he and England were sitting very pretty at the top of the class (well, Group Six of the European section of World Cup Qualifying anyway).

A distinctly trickier task was taken four days later in Minsk. Yet, by now, Capello was brushing aside anything placed in his path and even found time to offer his personal solution to the age-old Gerrard/Lampard conundrum. Apparently playing the Liverpool man at inside-left is the way to get 30-yard goals—normally reserved for his club—on the international scene.

Then came a break, with the real exams on the backburner for six months, replaced by mock appraisals. The Italian kept his winning streak going in Berlin before stumbling for the first time of the year in Seville. A test too far, perhaps. Although, hopefully lessons were learnt, just in case the exact same questions come up again next year in South Africa…

Back to the exam hall for the first time in a while, Capello was almost made to look the April Fool by Shevchenko at the beginning of April before John Terry swiftly rectified the situation, successfully keeping the Three Lions pass rate at 100 percent.

And so we come now to the very last exams of the season, the culmination, so they say, of a whole year’s work—a thorough examination of everything we were supposed to have learnt throughout the last year.

Except Capello has somehow switched the papers, and England face only Kazakhstan and Andorra, a test that he could surely pass with one hand tied behind his back. Or with David James and Ben Foster missing, at least.

Five wins out of five and suddenly England expects. The 100 percent record must surely continue in the face of such opposition, for tougher tests are just around the corner. The ones in September and October cannot be failed—but at least we could settle for a draw or two if we pick up the six points here.

Group Six

                        P          PTS

England            5         15

Croatia              5         10

Ukraine             4         7

Belarus             4         6

Kazakhstan       5         3

Andorra             5         0

Sat 6 June Belarus vs. Andorra, Grodno

Sat 6 June Croatia vs. Ukraine, Zagreb

Sat 6 June Kazakhstan vs. England, Almaty

Wed 10 June Ukraine vs. Kazakhstan, Kiev

Wed 10 June England vs. Andorra, London