Chris McGrath: Is football a pantomime or a tragedy?

Perhaps he misunderstood. His English, after all, remains curiously inept. And if Fabio Capello thought he had been asked whether he expects "booze" among the home fans, when his World Cup flops peer over the parapet at Wembley tonight, his eager assent would make a lot of sense. As it is, the England manager appears to have encouraged the paying public to boo as lustily as they wish. It is no less, he suggests, than he and his team deserve – and therefore no less than they should expect.

Now Capello is hardly likely to lose sleep over the sort of oafish derision that seems inevitable when England begin expiation for their performance in South Africa with a friendly against Hungary. Where he comes from, the "ultras" notoriously trace a direct lineage to the bloodthirsty mobs of the Coliseum. Back in Italy, it would seem a little reckless to wear a badge depicting three lions, in case it gave them ideas. Here, however, even an orchestrated walkout – expected for the last five minutes of the first half – is liable to be interpreted as little more than a sly ruse to jump the half-time queues at the bar. And, by respectfully embracing any protest before it is made, Capello will have troubled the conscience of many. Because isn't booing, well, rather bad form?

Now that players command wages just about commensurate with a cure for cancer, the only people who can match them for a groundless sense of entitlement are the fans themselves. Few, surely, will contemplate a communal sulk between fans and players – mutually aggrieved, mutually disaffected – without sensing an essential want of dignity. In the past, England fans have rounded with unseemly haste on the author of any blunder, as when an inattentive back-pass from Ashley Cole allowed Kazakhstan to score in 2008. But there you have it, in a nutshell. Not without reason, Cole is considered the epitome of graceless narcissism in the modern footballer. But when he was injured last season the nation suddenly forgave him anything so long as he recovered before the World Cup.

Ultimately, even those romantics sufficiently deranged to envisage Cole cavorting round the trophy with his good chum John Terry could only do so with a certain queasiness. In turn, some of England's best players can barely conceal their discomfort in national service. And the fact is that many – perhaps even most – elite footballers are perfectly decent, responsible men, by no means immune to the hazards and obligations that accompany their wealth.

There was an instructive vignette at Arsenal a couple of seasons ago, when home fans barracked substitute Emmanuel Eboué so mercilessly he was substituted himself. It was a distressing scene, but raised fascinating questions. Were those who had forked out for expensive season tickets not entitled to make their feelings known, when they felt short-changed? Or were they simply betraying their ancestral duties as "the 12th man"?

There as many different types of fan as there are types of personality. Any who remember the visceral tempests of the old terraces will have seen men all but rupture their larynxes, and the veins on their temples, to rebuke a fine decision by the referee, and seen also how this, too often, was clearly the one and only release from seven days of drudgery. But others would suspend their critical faculties in obedient fealty to the tribe, however unworthy. To these, no provocation can ever justify the apostasy of booing your own team.

Eboué, interestingly, has since turned himself inside-out and excelled last season. But it is also worth considering how his manager, Arsene Wenger, was approached during the World Cup by an African fan whose cousin committed suicide after Arsenal lost to Manchester United last season. It goes without saying that no football match should be worth a life. But nor, then, should it be worth your dignity. You can't have it both ways. Boos belong at the pantomime. And if that's all football ever amounts to, then why treat it like tragedy?

c.mcgrath@independent.co.uk