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Who is Fabio Capello? It's a question not normally asked of a top football manager, not in this age of celebrity, hype and the ever-present paparazzi.
The fact we have to ask it at all shows how different this England manager is and why he deserves much wider celebration.
It's not just the results on the pitch - eight wins out of eight and comfortable qualification for next year's World Cup.
Nor is it only the manner of the victories - the national side is playing as a team, with high-profile players such as Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney displaying the same drive as they do, week in week out, for their clubs.
It's also the lead that Capello is showing off the pitch. His dress sense and appearance are more plainclothes Italian cop than clothes horse.
Wags are banned before the game - so gone, hopefully for ever, is the sort of unedifying circus of the partners shopping and carousing as their men train nearby.
Capello can't abide flip-flops. Banned too is the mobile phone at team meals. And they can't order their usual ketchup and chips.
Calling each other by nickname is forbidden. Banished as well are the cliques of England members drawn from one club sitting at one end of the table and another group at the opposite end.
Their talk and consequently their focus is on "England, England, England", not whether Man U will give Chelsea a stuffing the next occasion they meet.
No outsiders are allowed anywhere near, so agents and the other hangers-on who make up the entourage of the modern sports star must take themselves elsewhere.
All highly disciplined, militaristic, creditable stuff. But there is more to Capello.
He's not a person who tolerates second-best. He pursues excellence, and will not let emotion divert him.
After England beat Croatia 5-1 at Wembley this week and confirmed their participation in South Africa in 2010, the captain, John Terry, moved to hug him. Capello, though, was having none of it.
Winning is more important than playing beautifully, and win he does, with Milan, Real Madrid, Roma, Juventus and now with England.
He guided every club team he was with to its domestic championship.
But he uses the tools he's got. With England he's restricted to using English players.
Capello, the pragmatist, will extract the maximum from them - moaning at not having the right tools at his disposal is for others.
Capello is married to Laura. He didn't meet her in a nightclub or on a fashion shoot but on a bus when they were teenagers. They've been together 40 years.
Photos of them together are rare - indeed, media organisations have been warned off taking shots of Capello away from football.
Contrast that with the Sven and Nancy show, when Capello's predecessor but one as England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson and his companion, Nancy Dell'Olio, were rarely out of the limelight.
Capello's son, Pierfilippo, is his agent so his business and financial affairs are kept within the family.
When Capello was appointed he spoke little English but he's applied himself and can now get by.
This will be his last job in football, he has declared. So he is not using England as a stepping stone.
The England football coach's passion for fine art has seen him amass a collection worth an estimated £17 million, with Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian painter and major abstract influence, a particular favourite.
In the evenings, he likes to relax listening to opera and classical music.
If football is the national game, then Capello occupies a special place in the life of the nation.
This is a leader for whom, for once, we can give thanks.
