A chorus line ... Classical music could find a place in England's training programme. Photograph: Owen Humphreys / PA
A new dawn for the weird and wonderful relationship between classical music and football: not just that the title sequences of both the BBC and ITV's coverage of Euro 2008 include snatches of variously electronically mashed-up masterpieces - because, you know, Austria! Mozart! Beethoven! - but also within the England camp.
Fabio Capello, it has been well-reported, is a classical music enthusiast and opera aficionado, as any self-respecting Italian should be. But the word is that he's already making his mark on the concert-going scene in London, recently pitching up to the Barbican for Valery Gergiev's performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, The Resurrection, with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Maybe his inspirational leadership will take in expanding the cultural as well as footballing horizons of his young English charges. If Fab can make Rio, Wayne, and super Stevie G get past Nessun Dorma and into the opera house, we could be looking at a seismic paradigm shift in the sporting-cultural politics of a nation.
We half expect ex-French rugby players and Guardian writers to enjoy Puccini (cf. Thomas Castaignède), but the idea of Frank Lampard at the Philharmonic is somehow more of an imaginative leap. Why? Misplaced snobbery? I've seen ex-Arsenal defender Lee Dixon at the Royal Opera, after all, to name but one, even if I've yet to spy Tony Adams there. What Fab can do in the dressing room is uncouple the idea that it's incompatible, somehow, to love both classical music and the beautiful game.
The gains could be huge: having the England team lead Wembley in a celebration of music's trans-national power to inspire patriotism with Verdi's Anvil chorus, say. Or, even better, a mass performance of the finale of Mahler 2: a resurrection of the musical life of England - as well as the longed-for resurrection of its footballing prowess. "Aufersteh'n, ja Aufersteh'n!" indeed.
