If the requirement is for the best leader, the man who exudes the qualities required of a captain on the pitch, there remains no one better. The difficulty arises when those two spheres collide, when Terry’s conduct becomes such an issue that his authority and popularity on the pitch are eroded.

But the case against Terry has been growing week by week, creating an environment in which yesterday’s allegations — involving an affair with a former girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, an England and former Chelsea team-mate, not to mention one of his best friends in football — threaten to create hostility from team-mates, rather than just the public or media.

From a football viewpoint, the allegations have not mattered until now — he is hardly the first sportsman to have strayed from his marital bed or to have lusted after money — but suddenly questions will be asked not only of his role-model credentials but also of what kind of team-mate, what kind of captain and what kind of person Terry really is.

Capello must decide whether it is more damaging to ignore the baying mob or to succumb to it. It is clear what he would like to do — to hope that the storm blows over. But this is England in 2010. Storms such as this just do not blow over.

However, Henry Winter in The Telegraph is far less philosophical, calling unequivocally for Terry to step down.

I like Terry, the one natural leader in the England dressing room, a player so passionately committed to the cause of St George that he willingly endures jabs just to get his stiff back through games, but this really is an embarrassment too far. It’s time for him to stand down.

It’s only football, hardly a bastion of morality, but certain standards are still expected of the England captain.