Media: Results, Not Terry, Put Paid To Capello

Fabio Capello's decision to quit England dominated the Italian newspapers and was splashed on all the front pages as well as on the TV.

Top-selling Gazzetta Dello Sport pictured Capello on its front page with the headline reading: "Capello shock: Resignation", adding that he had left the position he had held since 2007 because he "felt betrayed".

They also highlighted out how he had walked out just four months before the European Championships and that Inter Milan was the most likely destination for him now - a club which has been linked with him several times in the past.

The newspaper also claimed that FA officials had asked Capello at their Wembley meeting if he was prepared to "take a step back and withdraw his comments" that he made to Italian TV last weekend and which sparked off the row but he told them "absolutely not".

They quoted Capello as telling FA chiefs David Bernstein and Alex Horne: "I'm not getting into the question of racism because I know racism is a serious problem and I have always been sensitive to that argument but you cannot take a decision (to strip John Terry of the captaincy) without involving me.

"How would I look to to the players as we go to the European Championships?"

In an editorial, Gazzetta added: "He is going with his back straight and jaw held high, with a good few pounds (sterling) in his pockets. Results and play were lower than expected but that's the way things go.

"What will Fabio Capello do now? With his startling decision to leave, Fabio ends an important and complicated experience, he is renouncing the shop window of the European Championships, making himself available immediately. Where will he go?

"Will he still be a manager or will he take an executive job?"

Gazzetta also pointed out how the art-collecting, golf-loving Capello would be 66 in June and they also suggested he would be better suited to a back-room executive job - possibly at Roma where his former England number two Franco Baldini is now based.

They also added that Capello was "tough" and that he did not "love diplomacy" and to people who accuse him of being arrogant he replies: 'I don't give a damn'.

Repubblica also had his resignation on the front page and headlined it: "Capello on the market: Goodbye England" adding that the English could no longer support him and he could no longer support the English.

"A politically correct excuse was needed to kill this never-consummated marrige and the Terry case with its underlying racist tone was perfect."

In their editorial, Repubblica said: "In England you don't joke about xenophobia in sport and Capello did not understand that, or maybe he chose not to understand it."

It went on to say: "'But not even a child can really believe that a captain's armband, after an insult which is still unclear, is enough to get rid of a manager, to make him slam the door.

"The position is lost when you are no longer winning, when you play badly, when you are not accepted by the team, when you end up getting on everyone's nerves.

"Achievements that Fabio the hardman managed to secure one after the other, with such success that he had never seen before in his long career."

It went on: "The inventors of football (even if they have not won a World Cup since Queen Elizabeth was a young girl) could put up with an Italian on the bench on one condition: that he triumphed and he could reverse history.

"Instead he was a disaster, the South Africa World Cup was horrendous and there was the fear it would be repeated at the European Championships.

"Before it got to that, the baggage had to be lost."