Why the FA was right to ignore Pep Guardiola

Among the delusions England are scrabbling desperately to escape is the idea that glamorous foreign coaches can correct 47 years of failure. All the visiting genius needs is 20 days on the training ground each year to stop English footballers giving the ball away. Reports that Pep Guardiola contacted the Football Association through an intermediary when Fabio Capello stomped away last year will read like a missed opportunity only to those who believe in top-down miracle cures.

On the surface, David Bernstein, the then FA chairman, should have spun in his executive chair and formed a staff conga down the corridors on hearing that Barcelona's uber-charismatic coach wanted to be interviewed for Capello's old job. At a stroke, a man with two Champions League titles and three La Liga crowns would transform England into a side of tiki-taka-istas, confident in possession, tactically sophisticated and sure of their identity. It was an open secret that Guardiola had sniffed around the England job, shortly before starting his sabbatical in New York. Why was he interested?

Let no one question Guardiola's zeal for management or his appetite for a challenge. But his tentative interest in Roy Hodgson's current position might have expressed his wish to take a highly lucrative part-time job that would have allowed him to escape the "pressures" of Barcelona while still enabling him to pursue his intellectual interests.

Sven-Goran Eriksson took the radioactive tracksuit because he liked the package and saw England as the mother lode of Swedish football. He knew he would be comfortable sending out sides in 4-4-2 formation and telling the defenders to bypass the midfield with balls over the top. Capello - who was also doubtless attracted by the gargantuan salary - came on a kind of safari, travelling back up river to the heart of the game. Mostly he was unimpressed with what he found.

Bernstein, who might have earned popular acclaim for hiring the most fashionable name in world football, instead elected to 'go British'. He found Capello's replacement not in the edgy England of Harry Redknapp but the more bookish suburban world of Hodgson, who returns to Kiev for the first time since England lost a penalty shoot-out to Italy at Euro 2012 in June last year. Back then Hodgson was on a kind of free pass. With only a few weeks notice he had been sent out to Poland and Ukraine on a damage limitation exercise.

Bernstein might have said: "Do what you can, old chap, and we'll start from scratch when you get back." In Hodgson's shoes, Guardiola might have inspired England to win the shoot-out with Italy (a highly questionable hypothesis, given their record), and then run smack bang into Germany, the country where he now works at Bayern Munich, and possibly Spain, the place of his birth. Then, Guardiola would have returned to a mansion on Regents Park, say, to oversee a World Cup qualifying campaign that would have taught him about Premier League power, the 32 per cent pool of England-qualified players, and the technical deficiencies of many at his disposal.

To believe Guardiola would have reinvented the English footballer, you have also to think that 20-30 England training sessions per year would send the brilliance of Barcelona flying off his finger tips and into the souls of James Milner and Gary Cahill. It would have been grotesque: another surrender to short-termism and chequebook problem solving. What would Guardiola's next move have been when he made the same discoveries as Capello? You can almost hear his agonised phone calls to friends and confidantes: "Why can they not do what I ask them?"

To some England supporters, appointing Hodgson was a compromise that saved Bernstein from having to do the two things he least wanted: give the job to Redknapp, or hire a third foreign manager in 10 years. Hodgson's biggest attribute was that he knew the English culture, was familiar with all the players, understood the limits of their abilities and how to build a sense of national purpose. Fifteen months on from his last visit to Ukraine, he returns for a match that may determine whether he can satisfy the minimum requirement for mother-country managers: that of qualification.

"I enjoy the manager, I've got a lot of respect for him," said Frank Lampard, earnestly, on the eve of his 100th England cap. You can tell already that the senior players thought it daft for Greg Dyke, Bernstein's successor, to say there was no realistic hope of England winning in Brazil next summer. Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Ashley Cole are not signing up for a "doomed mission", a phrase used by a reporter last week, to Hodgson's annoyance. Nor will any sensible England player take much notice of Dyke's target of winning the 2022 World Cup.

The FA, however, has at least begun dismantling the most persistent myths. They must know - because people kept shouting it at them - that reform has to start from the bottom up, with coaching, with a new faith in passing, ball retention, creativity and skill. The task is to eradicate the pernicious notion that football is a game of physical subjugation, of hot-potato action, in which artistry is a luxury rather than a necessity.

The first step was take no interest in Guardiola's call and to turn instead to Hodgson. His side of the deal is to manage any crisis in Ukraine better than England coped with the second half in Montenegro in March, or the dire 1-1 draw against Poland in Warsaw in October last year. He has still fully to repay Bernstein's faith, and cannot do so until England are safely through to Brazil and ready to shine in the game's spiritual home.

Saying no to Guardiola, though, was as important as saying yes to Hodgson, because it affirmed that England's problems could not be solved by money, or imported charisma. It would have been another fake relationship: another flag of convenience. This one, which has the ring of truth, now calls for a mighty performance in Kiev.