For a long while now I have thought international management in particular is better for a manager who has had a long career in league football.

Fabio Capello is a prime example. Now in his 60s, having won most things at club level, he has already said the England job could be his last in management.

My reasons for the argument is that I noticed when working with Graham Taylor and watching others like Kevin Keegan and Steve McClaren, the media circus, which believe me is much bigger than you can think, will start to question the experience and background of the man in the hot-seat after the honeymoon period is over.

When the manager has had a long career he usually would have had some measure of success, otherwise he wouldn’t have been offered the national job in the first place.

The journalists have their records in front of them.

The older managers have nothing to prove to the media or anyone else. So they get on with looking forward.

Capello has done exactly that and has now completed, amazingly, his first year with England.

Even though he is the last one to boast or point out any success, which is again sometimes a weakness with younger managers who continually feel they have to prove something, Fabio this week, after the exceptional result in Germany, announced he was very satisfied having won seven, drawn one and lost one game in his first nine.

But it isn’t only the results that have impressed.

Even the most hard-bitten member of the pack who follow the team all round the world will say it’s the fact he distances himself far enough from the players.

That he has got rid of a culture which had crept in that gave the impression that the players were becoming more important than the management, who seemed at times to be trying to curry their favour and looking foolish by using silly nicknames.

Girlfriends and wives on trips were getting more headlines than the team performances.

By doing this, Capello has also gained the respect, or some may say fear, of even the most senior players.

There is a thin line between the two words.

Why, you may ask, should multi-millionaire footballers fear anything?

The simple fact is that their agent, adviser or whoever they surround themselves with will be quick to point out playing club football at the highest level is one thing, but to maintain the big off-the-field contracts you need to play international football, particularly with a World Cup on the horizon.

And so the significance of this week’s result was not just the fact that it was the first loss that Germany had suffered in Berlin since 1973, but it was done without about eight players who most people would normally expect to be automatic choices.

Capello is now in a position to make most of those eight and their agents have a few uneasy moments between now and the next international in February.

Fabio can certainly put his feet up for a while. He has proved a massive point to one and all.

Then we get to the subject of friendlies during the season. I know from my own experience with England the problems Graham Taylor, above, had with managers of the big clubs.

One in particular got one of his staff to contact Graham on the Saturday night after a league game to say the player had been injured and would be withdrawn from the intentional squad for the game the following Wednesday.

Graham accepted this in good faith until half an hour later the player himself rang to say ‘I’m fit and want to join up’.

I knew there was not a lot of love lost between Graham and the manager and I stepped in to mediate.

What the player had said was he was perfectly fit but was subbed with 20 minutes to go with his team well in front and after the game the assistant manager pulled him to one side to say ‘you know that you’re not going with England because you’re injured’.

When the player objected furiously, he was given an ultimatum.

I was able to persuade the club manager to let the player join up for a long away trip; however, I was not surprised to see that that player was transferred months later.

Literally, that’s how serious it can get.

The same managers will tell you that if it is a competitive game there is no problem.

Most of it was summed up last week when Martin O’Neill in a more than usual talkative moment, and believe me that means a flood of words, said he was delighted on the one hand that three of his players had been selected for the England squad.

He said he shared their excitement, he hoped they would get an appearance, but almost wanted them to be no more than two minutes because at this time of the season the league is much more important than a friendly international.

I smiled because when Martin was in the Northern Ireland team he would have thought completely the opposite.

Having said that, remembering his manager was Brian Clough I’m not sure he would have argued.

We read about his tug of words between the Liverpool hierarchy and even Chelsea who had said Gerrard, left, and Lampard were injured and Benitez in particular was upset that Gerrard had to do a round trip of 400 miles to prove his injury.

It’s not as if by the way he had to get into one of his posh cars and drive himself – from my own experience with England a chauffeured car will be on hand door to door.

It will be interesting to see how things develop in the build-up to 2010 as his results get better and his own position becomes stronger.