Is 44 years of hurt really set to end?

With so many pundits and fans tipping Fabio Capello’s men to end the 44 years of hurt that many English fans have had to endure, I am looking at if Capello’s men can really bring home the World Cup.

When on the 14^th December 2007 the Football Association appointed Italian born Fabio Capello, English fans were still hurting from the teams failure to reach the 2008 European Championships in Austria and Switzerland after the embarrassing qualifying campaign under Steve McLaren, later to be known as ‘The Wally with the Brolly’.

Under McLaren’s leadership, England lost crucial games home and away to Croatia, with the home defeat at Wembley on that fateful Wednesday evening condemning England to failure of not reaching a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup in the U.S.A.

As the rain lashed down, an unorganised and shambolic England side slipped to a 3-2 defeat, leading to ‘The Sun’ newspaper the next day leading with a headline ‘Wally with the Brolly’ after images of McLaren under a brolly looking clueless.

Since that day England and in particular new boss Fabio Capello has not looked back. Capello started with an unconvincing 2-1 victory in a friendly against Switzerland at Wembley, but it was to be the start of a regime that has simply shone from the very beginning.

Even the most optimistic England fan couldn’t have expected a World Cup qualifying campaign that was to follow. In a group alongside Andorra, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine and the dreaded Croatia, it was always expected that England would make the World Cup in South Africa, although many thought it may have had to be via a play-off.

Capello’s World Cup campaign began with a potential bananna skin visit to ‘little’ Andorra, however two goals from Joe Cole saw the Italian master get off to the perfect start. Next up for Capello was one of the hardest fixtures in the group with a visit to Croatia; however Capello’s new hard man regime was sensational as they left Croatia with a 4-1 win under their belt with Theo Walcott impressing with a hat-trick.

England secured qualification with a 5-1 victory at Wembley against Croatia erasing memories of the dreadful night under McLaren. Only defeat in Kiev against Ukraine in the penultimate game of qualification ended England’s chances of qualifying with a 100% record, although they had already qualified.

So what has Capello changed? First of all it’s the attitude that everyone is part of the team and no one is superior. Under former bosses Sven-Goran Eriksson and Steve McLaren it was always thought that certain players influenced decisions within the dressing room, however under Capello it is clear who makes the decisions as he seems to give everyone a chance to impress him.

Also under Capello there is a new strict regime, players are expected to eat together without distractions like mobile phones while Capello also demands that players wear suits when arriving to games and representing themselves to media, a stark contrast to when we use to see players arrive and give interviews in their designer clothes or tracksuits.

So what about the players? By and large Capello has used the same team that didn’t make it to Euro 2008. The return of Beckham to the squad was no real surprise as he impressed on loan at AC Milan, however Capello did give others the chance to impress in the qualifying campaign with the likes of Darren Bent, Leighton Baines, Stephen Warnock and Joe Hart all included in Capello’s 30-man provisional squad for South Africa.

Under Capello, fans can expect determination, passion and professionalism and it’s for these three attributes that England fans can get genuinely get excited at the prospect of finally ending all those years of hurt, and failing that we could just rely on 33 goal hero for Manchester United this season, Wayne Rooney.