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Funny isn't it? The press (rightly) savaged Steve McClaren for his failure to take England to the European Championships after a series of abject performances against inferior opposition, yet when one of the greatest managers of all time is lined up as his replacement, suddenly the likes of Harry Redknapp and Alan Curbishley should be "given a chance."

There have even been murmurs in some quarters of involving Alan Shearer or Stuart Pearce and that a potential English England coach should have "time" to turn things around.

Oh dear. Since when did England have time? England are one of the top nations in world football; they invented the game in its current guise, for crying out loud (sorry China). And, much as their main rivals snigger at repeated penalty shoot-out exits from major tournaments, people want them to qualify. It is disastrous, both in sporting terms and financially, for England to miss a tournament.

England is a football mad, media overloaded and - crucially - cash rich nation. It has rubbish weather. People have bad skin. Therefore, they like to go on summer holiday. Football holidays. Where they blow loads of their strong pounds. If England don't qualify, sponsorship and advertising revenues plummet for organisers and broadcasters and the host nation misses out on at least 200,000 young, affluent males who drink beer like mineral water, eat like rhinos and spend like a footballer's wife in Dubai.

And other football fans love to watch England play and, preferably, lose. They think it's hilarious when the ballsy, backs-against-the-wall ten men of England have an extra-time goal disallowed and miss all their spot-kicks. And, oddly, quite a lot of non-English people want England to do well, vaguely support them and - for reasons unbeknown to the English - wear the England shirt.

So, given the minimum requirement that England qualify for every tournament and the ideal scenario of progress to at least the second round, the likes of Curbs, Harry, Psycho and Niggly - much as we like them - cannot be given time because this minimum requirement discounts managers out of hand who have never won trophies, never taken their club sides beyond sixth place in their domestic league.

Why the anti-Capello sentiment then? Fine, his grasp of the English language is limited but it is not non-existent and he has almost a year until his first competitive match, more than enough time to bring himself up to the standard of verbal heavyweights such as John Terry and Joe Cole.

Apparently he doesn't play "sexy football." Boo hoo. England fans don't care about sexy football, they care about winning. Most England fans don't support "sexy" teams like Manchester United, Arsenal or Real Madrid. And they laugh heartily at frisky, underachieving teams like Newcastle and Tottenham. They support Grimsby, Carlisle, Reading, Fulham, Wolves, Millwall, Leyton Orient, Barnsley, Nuneaton Borough, Crystal Palace, Farnham Town, Woking, Spennymoor, Sheffield United, Wednesday, Plymouth, Tranmere, Cannock Town... they support clubs that rarely win anything, clubs that battle relegation from lower divisions to even lower divisions, whose total utter disbelief at being bought by a rich local businessman is quickly tempered by the fact that they will never, ever be famous, whatever happens.

Believe me, I know. I am one of those England fans. We have spent thousands of pounds of our hard-earned cash, each, following what we once called "our boys". Sex is for the bedroom, not the football pitch (it is also for car parks, lay-bys and nightclub toilets if you like that sort of thing). We do not want some two-bit, half-baked joker with no history of winning anything, ever, dashing our hopes and dreams yet again. We don't want to give unproven, untested and quite frankly unworthy candidates "time" or a "chance." We want to win - we want to be proud to be England fans again.

We do not want self-serving hacks clamouring for coaches who they know will give newsworthy banter in spite of almost certain failure. They got that with McClown and look what happened. Of course everyone wanted Mourinho, he was the perfect choice in terms of track record and media savvy, not to mention cheekbones to die for. But he got tired of flirting with the FA, we have to move on and Capello has the best CV of all the candidates (languages aside, even better than Jose's) - he has won things, he is the right age for international football and, crucially, his style of management is exactly what England need.

Capello turns up at clubs and, within six months, turns them around. He has had two seasons in Spain and won La Liga twice. He won Serie A with Roma - Italy's equivalent of Newcastle or Tottenham. Capello is a strict, no-nonsense disciplinarian, a tactical wizard and a born winner.

People have been drawing lazy, unfavourable comparisons with Sven-Goran Eriksson because, er, they're both foreign, innit. Sven and Fabio could not be more different from one another, as managers and as people. Sven is relaxed, thinks long-term, slowly instilling confidence and an efficient playing system into his players with low-level psychology. There is no, and has never been, fire and brimstone with Sven, just consistent, progressive, positive results. He also needs to be able to build his team up with players who fit his team profile; athletic defenders with high performance anxiety to protect the fortress, attackers with no fear whatsoever and exceptionally high ambition to score the goals, and born leaders to drag team-mates kicking and screaming to victories to captain his sides.

This is why he is such a success at club level and a moderate success internationally; Sven was unable to build a team of such players for England because he was limited, not by talent, but by the attitudes of his players, many of whom have little ambition at international level because they only care about the clubs who pay their remarkably high wages. And he still got them to three consecutive quarter finals, beating Germany, Argentina and new hoodoo side Croatia in the process, with exactly the same players who couldn't make it out of a qualifying group containing heavyweights such as Russia (who, really, are not very good), Israel, FYR Macedonia and Andorra.

What England needs now is a motivator, someone to put fear in their hearts and fire in their bellies. Someone who can turn things around and make them winners, whatever the costs. Someone who is not afraid to drop a big-name, Movida-attending, half-interested celebrity for a grafter willing to die for the cause; someone who would play a Barry over a Gerrard if and when form and needs required and would make them win, because he is tactically and emotionally astute.

We have a selection of half-decent club managers who, maybe one day, will be ready for the task. Keep your eye on Big Sam at Newcastle and for Steve Coppell's next management job. Unlike the Germans we do not have a coaching culture which allows for a young, spunky motivator to rally the troops and leave all the technical and media stuff to experienced pros, which discounts Juergen Klinsmann and the English equivalent, Alan Shearer.

We need somebody who can do it all, can do it now and can do it well. Capello is that somebody. Who cares if he doesn't talk platitudes to the press? Winning is a far better story.

Reda Maher / Eurosport