Confidence key for Capello

Italian coach has rid Three Lions of fear factor

By Ben Collins   Last updated: 16th November 2008   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Confidence key for Capello

Capello: Has overseen transformation

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Fabio Capello reckons confidence has been the key to England's transformation under the Italian coach.

England had hit rock-bottom a year ago when a home defeat by Croatia denied them a place at Euro 2008 and Steve McClaren was axed as coach.

Capello was then appointed and has sought to rid the national squad of the fear factor that crippled their previous qualifying campaign.

Although Capello's reign began with a series of hesitant friendly performances, England have now put together a run of four straight qualifying victories, which included gaining revenge against Croatia with a 4-1 win in Zagreb.

England now head to Berlin for a friendly against Germany on Wednesday sitting proudly at the top of Group Six and with team morale at a high.

"What has changed the most is the confidence of the players," said Capello.

Confidence

"In my first game against Switzerland in February, I remember we played without confidence. Now I can see it. It is the most important thing."

Capello is without the likes of Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole and Joe Cole through injury, while he has opted to leave out David Beckham and Michael Owen due to a lack of first-team action.

The Italian boss has therefore taken the opportunity to call up the uncapped trio of Gabriel Agbonlahor, Curtis Davies and Michael Mancienne but is determined not to tinker too much and lose the momentum gained in recent months.

"It is very important for me to follow a certain route even though a lot of players are injured," he said.

"As a team manager you can work every day. In charge of England I get three days and one game a month.

"Confidence disappears more quickly than it appears so we should keep to the road that has got us results."

While England's top stars have excelled on the UEFA Champions League stage with their clubs, they have been unable to reproduce that form consistently in the international arena.

And Capello revealed that before his first game in charge against Switzerland in February, he spoke to his players in a bid to find out why they were struggling with England.

Fear

"We spoke about mistakes and errors," he said. "We spoke about the systems. We spoke to remove fear and find confidence.

"English players were excellent with their clubs but they were not the same when they were with their national team. We have worked a lot on that.

"But I never spoke about the past. I have never done that in my life.

"I did not discuss what went wrong. I asked them to forget about the past and just to think about the future.

"I saw all the games on DVD," Capello added. "I studied them and started to understand why some results happened.

"When they had to get a result in the last game at home against Croatia, there was no confidence at all. The team played with fear."