Click here to see England’s technical faults against Switzerland
Having restricted mobile phones to players’ rooms at England training camps and ordered his new charges to dress smartly and turn up for meals together, Fabio Capello believes that he is already seeing the benefits of a more disciplined regime.
“It has been nice to see that people are in agreement with me about giving rules and order to players who until a little while ago weren’t acting that professionally,” Capello said. Once in action, his aim is to change the way England play, with more emphasis on short passing to feet and patient build-ups rather than always searching for a long ball towards the central strikers.
The size of the task facing Capello in restoring England’s fortunes became clearer yesterday when Franco Baldini, one of his assistants, conceded that many of the players must improve technically.
In expressing his master’s voice, Baldini insisted that the new management team were satisfied at the end of their first week working with the squad, but left them in no doubt that more will be expected.
“The standard of skill will be better and we need more technical skill,” Baldini said. “We have to practise, practise, practise. Unfortunately we have the players just for a few days every two months and so, on this occasion, we made four training sessions. Maybe some managers here will not approve of this, but we have to try at all times so that we can do that. England have to play like England, but maybe a little bit better.
“We have to try and play more. We are trying to play more with the ball because the English culture is after two, three passes, horizontal passes, the crowd is asking for the ball through the air.
“We have to play with more confidence because it’s easier to play when the ball is at your feet. So we have to try and incorporate this confidence in our game, in our self, to give us more chances. Some things were good in this game, some things not.”
