Capello, who also gave his thoughts on Thomas Tuchel’s upcoming reign as England manager - which you can read here - speaking exclusively to Flashscore, also made the transition from player to manager.
It is, according to the former Real Madrid and Juventus manager, a transition that takes time but one that can be achieved, as football history suggests.
He told Flashscore: “When you start to play, when you finish playing, you have to do something different, you have to prepare something different. You can manage that one team immediately, one team in the first division. (Andrea) Pirlo managed Juventus, Lampard managed Chelsea.
“When I finished playing, for the first five years, I worked with the academy. When you work with the academy, you understand what you have to do, when you speak to the players, when you speak with the youngsters.
“It’s, for me, it’s a university. A university where you can understand what you have to do because when you finish playing at the top level like Lampard and Gerrard, you can enter immediately into another job. You have to understand.”
That jump into management has seen both of England’s ‘golden generation’ midfielders work multiple jobs. For Gerrard, a stint at Rangers bought success but he has struggled to replicate that with Aston Villa and At Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia.
For Lampard, he has stuck to the UK and is currently enjoying a great spell with Coventry City - taking them from Championship relegation candidates to a playoff-threatening side. Capello believes, with their experiences, they are destined to succeed.
He added: “I believe the players, they have to do something before to be a manager. I noticed these two fantastic players, two of the best players I managed, and I am sure that in the future they will also be very good head coaches in important clubs. Because they understand the mistake they made at the start.”
Plenty of other players who worked under Capello have taken up jobs to stay in the game.
The Italian Job
One of those is the former Italian captain Fabio Cannavaro, who is currently managing Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb. It seemed a left-field choice, but Capello believes the ‘courageous’ move can keep you in the spotlight.
He explained: “I believe that if one wants to coach he must accept to go to certain places where he can return to the circuit because if you stay at home no one talks about you. Now Cannavaro has gone to Zagreb, Dinamo Zagreb, he beat Milan, people are already talking about him, right?
“So you return to the spotlight and (Gennaro) Gattuso the same, so you have to have the courage to face these situations. Among other things, Canavaro went to China, I was in China with him, I met him. He also coached in Saudi Arabia, right?
“And so everyone must have the courage to go to coach teams that, according to them who have coached at higher levels or played at higher levels, are not as they would have believed. It takes courage to do it. I admire those who go abroad.”
If opportunities arrive for Cannavaro away from the Croatian capital, his former manager believes he should take those seriously.
He added: “The possibility of coaching an important team. He has coached around, he has gained experience, in Italy he coached Udinese and saved them. I thought they would keep him, but instead they took another path, but now let's see what he can do with Dinamo Zagreb.”
It’s fair to say that it wasn’t just Italians, like Cannavaro, that Capello coach during his career. The 78-year-old employed players from around the world in his side, some from the Balkans themselves.
Only a madman can do that
Speaking about the likes of Davor Suker, Dejan Savicevic, Predrag Mijatovic and Zvonimir Boban, Capello thinks that they had the same way of expressing themselves on the pitch - some with outrageous skill like Savicevic.
He explained: “All in the same way and in their characteristics, in their characteristics they have expressed themselves at 100% and therefore this means that you have managed to enter their heads and it is the most beautiful thing.
“You ask these different players to do this, this and this, they do it, they express themselves to the maximum, leaving them the freedom to express themselves, because there are schemes, but one must be free to express themselves, to make a dribble, something different, because they have the technical ability to do it.
“Among these, the most brilliant was Savicevic, with whom I had a more conflicting relationship at the beginning and then instead a very good relationship at the end because he had something different.
"The goal he scored against Barcelona... I say only a madman can think of making a lob from that position. I asked him, ‘What came to your mind to shoot from that position?' He said, ‘I shot because I already knew I was going to score’. And then what do you want to say? When someone tells you this thing?”
Capello’s inspiration
If we were to count up all the current managers that have been influenced by Capello, we could fill a small stadium, but where did his style come from? Who influenced him?
Capello answers: "My coaching style, Nereo Rocco was my fellow countryman, and from him I found the spirit of simplicity and being direct.
“Then, I had a coach from whom I copied 65-70%, who was Helenio Herrera. He was a revolutionary coach, he was ahead of everyone. He said, among other things, ‘how you train, you play’ and when you trained slowly he got angry, he said ‘You can't train so slowly’. If you did a match and you went slowly, you didn't sprint, you didn't run, he stopped the game and said ‘change of possession’. You lost the ball and then everyone got angry - ‘Why don't you run?’
"Then the philosophy of Liedholm, who was one who allowed everything because with his calmness, with his intelligence he gave you the idea of letting you do anything, and instead you always did everything he wanted."