DO THE numbers. If Real Madrid win La Liga this evening, it will be Fabio Capello's eighth league title in his last 15 seasons of management.

And while the purist (or the pedant) may argue that the two titles he won at Juventus have since been stripped in the wake of the Italian scandal last summer and thus should not count since the "bianconeri" were "helped along", one could just as easily argue that, if you're going to deny him those crowns, you should grant him at least one more for the 2001-02 campaign, when his Roma side finished a single point behind Juve who (presumably) were being "assisted" back then as well.

That kind of "strike rate" is astoundingly rare at the highest level. Sir Alex Ferguson last season won his ninth league title in 15 years and it may be worth revisiting Jose Mourinho in ten seasons' time, but, that's the kind of company we're talking about here. What's more, Capello's feat in some ways stands out compared to Sir Alex. While the United boss has remained at Old Trafford throughout, Capello changed clubs five times in the same period, which usually meant he had to bring instant success by rebuilding underachieving sides.

His experience at Real this year epitomises this. The club were desperate for success after a four season stint without a trophy of any kind, their longest drought in more than fifty years. It was also a team reeling from the fallout of the Galactico era, filled with guys who did not fit into his plans but were too difficult to sell on, at least initially. He was brought in not to build a cycle of success or dazzle the critics but to deliver a title immediately. And now he stands 90 minutes away from that goal, with his side in control of their destiny.

If he succeeds, it may be his greatest triumph yet. Greater than the last time he was here, 10 years ago, when he guided Real to the crown with a record-breaking points total. Greater than his 1991-92 Milan side, who did not lose a single domestic game all season. Greater than his Roma side of 2000-01, who defied the odds in capturing only the third scudetto in their long history.

This season, Capello has had to negotiate sundry obstacles, starting with his own players. It's no exaggeration to say that, apart from Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos and Ruud Van Nistelrooy (who is one goal away from winning the European Golden Boot, a year on from being written off by the English media), every other Real player has underachieved this season. Then there was his stormy relationship with the media, who accused him of being prickly and ultra-defensive, the same charges lodged against him a decade ago. One television programme depicted him as a wild-eyed puppet capable only of shouting the word "Idiota!" in Tourette's-like fashion. The latter may well be true, but, given that his approach was known to all before he joined, it's a bit like hiring Vanessa Feltz as your Page 3 model and then complaining that she looks less than perfect in a bathing suit.

Throw in the fact that he received less than steadfast support from his perpetually insecure president, Ramon Calderon, and his shifty general manager, Predrag Mijatovic, who openly negotiated with a potential successor, Bernd Schuster, and at one point allegedly leaked the news that he was sacked and the measure of his achievement becomes clear. Furthermore, unlike in previous seasons, when match officials seemed to have a "kind eye" for Real, the side havereceived few such favors in this campaign: witness Leo Messi's craven "hand of God" shenanigans for Barcelona last weekend or the shocking officiating away to Racing Santander earlier this season.

Yet even if he delivers this evening against such a backdrop, he may not be aroundnextyear. One gets the sense that football for Capello is more a diversion than an obsession.

He only became a manager at the age of forty-five, after a decade overseeing Milan's youth academy. He once said he had resisted management because it would mean cutting back on his other passion, collecting art (it is rumoured that his collection is worth in excess of £12 million).

"People say I'm impatient when it comes to football and they're right," he once told me. "I can't stand the crap that gets talked by everyone, players, fans, the media, club officials sure, I suppose everyone is entitled to an opinion. But that doesn't mean their opinion is worth as much as everyone else's. Why should I waste my time listening to people who are clearly less intelligent than me?" Statements like those prompted one veteran Premiership boss to tell me that "Capello makes Mourinho look humble and insecure."

Paolo Di Canio, who got into a fistfight with him in Beijing during Milan's post-season tour of China a few months before joining Celtic, once told me: "Capello is living proof that you don't have to be a good person to be a good manager." The image that emerges is that of the stereotypical drill sergeant, the kind who says: "You don't have to like me, you don't even have to respect me. You just have to do what I say."

Liking Capello as a person was rather difficult for Roma supporters in June 2004 when he famously drove his club-issued car from Rome to Turin in the middle of the night and dumped the club for uber-rivals Juventus. The betrayal was the more acute given that Capello had spent the previous five years railing against Juve and its officials, accusing them of all sorts of misdeeds.

In typical Capello fashion, when he finally agreed to talk about his "betrayal" he simply shrugged and said: "I made my choice and I'll live with the consequences." This is a man who, if he acknowledges his own mistakes, does so in the privacy of his own mind. This is a man who is not affected by criticism, probably because he is convinced the critics are less intelligent than he is (and, usually, they are). This is a man who delivers as promised.