If he needs help in his captaincy dilemma then perhaps Fabio Capello could take a leaf out of the book of Marcelo Bielsa.

Currently with Athletic Bilbao after spells in charge of the national teams of Chile and his native Argentina, Bielsa believes that the role of the captain is to represent the squad - and on that basis he usually lets the players vote to determine who should lead them out. But that is where Bielsa's democracy ends.

In the late 90s when he first took the Argentine job there were some early problems - hardly a surprise given the unorthodox nature of his trademark 3-3-1-3 system.

Training sessions were not going as Bielsa would have liked. He felt that some resistance to his methods. He called his players together and asked them to write on a piece of paper whether they would prefer the team to line up with four or three at the back.

Then he sifted through the answers, almost all of which were in favour of a back four. "Well," he said to the group, "this shows which model has your preference. I would like to announce, then, that we are going to be playing with a back three. Bye." And with that he strode off.

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I have often mentioned the single greatest pleasure of covering South American football -spotting a future superstar on the way up, spying on the early steps of someone with the talent to become a household name all over the world.

Another pleasure comes from following some of those big names at the end of their playing days, when they come back from Europe to wind down their careers.

One of the fascinating aspects here is that they can fit into so many different categories.

One is exemplified by Juan Sebastian Veron, who came back from Italy when still at the height of his powers, motivated by a genuine love for Estudiantes and a burning ambition to bring the glory days back to the club where he first started - and where his father shone so brightly in the late 1960s.

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When Pepe, Real Madrid's Brazil-born defender, steps on the hand of Barcelona's Lionel Messi, the blame is not his alone.

A coach has three main tasks. He selects the team, prepares the strategy - and he also sets the emotional tone for the work. An uptight coach usually produces an uptight team.

When the opposition is Barcelona, Real Madrid boss Jose Mourinho appears to get carried away with the importance of the occasion, with some personal questions and with his own frustration at losing so often.

He has crossed the line and behaved in a manner inappropriate to a sporting contest and it is no surprise that one of the more hot-headed members of his team commits the same error.

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