World Cup 2010: England home – but where next for Fabio Capello?

Football Association says it will need 'a few weeks' to decide whether coach will keep his job

The England squad leaving their Rustenburg base yesterday. The FA will decide on Fabio Capello’s future in a fortnight’s time. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

An England manager is superman in reverse. He goes in dressed as a saviour and comes out like a tired accountant. Fabio Capello, whose whole career has been an exercise in power, was rendered powerless by English indecision as the Football Association announced it would need "a few weeks" to decide whether he would keep his job after Sunday's humiliating World Cup loss to Germany.
No longer the master of his own fate, Capello must wait for an FA mandarin to tell him whether he will retain the thankless task of restoring the country's faith in a shattered team. "I cried like a baby last night," said one South African security worker at England's luxury compound near Rustenburg as another expensively assembled circus was packed away before the squad's overnight flight home. They are due to arrive back at Heathrow early this morning.
The locals are sorry to see them go, but many England fans will be unhappy to see Capello stay after the country's heaviest World Cup defeat: a 4-1 victory for a Germany side bursting with intelligence and energy. Faced with the deepest identity crisis since the 1970s, when England twice failed to qualify for World Cups, the FA took the bold step of going back to London to have a good think about it.
Capello, who blamed the referee for not seeing that Frank Lampard's second-half effort had landed over the goal line – and the gruelling domestic season for delivering his men to South Africa "tired" – seemed diminished by the job. The cool retro Alf Ramsey-era tracksuit was replaced by a more sober navy blue number as he submitted to the obligatory inquisition from a media army who had driven seven hours north from Bloemfontein scenting Italian blood.
As football's real superpowers honed in on the quarter-finals (and German technical supremacy was held up as an indictment of English woodenness) Capello fiddled with the zip on his tracksuit top as he confirmed: "I spoke this morning with Sir Dave Richards [the chairman of Club England, with overall responsibility for the team] about this two years that I worked with the FA.
"They appreciated my work and what all my staff had done. He told me that he has to take two weeks to make the decision."
In a dire campaign Capello slipped from unchallengeable field marshal to potential castoff waiting by a phone. Dangling man is not his favoured pose.
The FA's Adrian Bevington emphasised that Capello's "two weeks" was likely to stretch to longer. With the ignominy of that delay may come a flounce from Capello's side, which would leave only a tussle between lawyers over the £12m he is entitled to in a contract that still has two years to run.
Richards is also the chairman of the Premier League, the empire of debt that is often blamed for placing the needs of the richest clubs ahead of the national interest. This obvious anomaly is one of the many obstacles to reform.
The main one remains a dearth of gifted young players to replace the ones who have been failing for the past 10 years.
"Look, I received a lot of offers to be a manager at other clubs [before the tournament]," Capello said. "When I spoke with Lord Triesman [the former chairman] I decided to stay here because I like being England manager and also I will accept whatever the FA decides. Yes, I have the appetite. I understand one thing which is really important and why England did not win before.
"I think, not only Wayne Rooney, but all the English players arrived really tired at this competition. I spoke with the coaches and all the coaches told me that the physical situation and the mental situation of the players was not like that of the players we know."
This diagnosis has cost the FA over £6m a year in salaries for five Italian experts, and for Capello there is the indignity of spinning out in the second round while his predecessor but one, the celeb-loving Sven-Goran Eriksson, took them to three tournament quarter-finals.
Was he content with the FA's "common sense" (their words) decision to dodge a decision? "Yes, I think it's an intelligent answer," Capello said.
It felt more like a requiem.