Capello: England feeling pressure

Fabio Capello
12 April 2012

Fabio Capello admitted his England side had caved in to pressure after they stumbled to a goalless draw against Algeria which leaves their World Cup hopes hanging by a thread.

The Italian gave an honest appraisal of one of England's worst-ever World Cup performances, in which Wayne Rooney was frustrated and out of sorts.

When asked about Rooney specifically, Capello said: "I don't like to speak about one player. I prefer to speak about the team. Rooney didn't play like Rooney, but he is not the problem. It is the pressure of the World Cup. These players are training very well. But these two games they were not the same."

He added: "We did not play a good game. We missed a lot of balls when we had to control. We missed a lot of passes and when we arrived at the box we tended to shoot at the goalkeeper. We missed everything. In this game I did not see the spirit of the team."

Capello also admitted England were "lucky" to still have a chance of getting to the last 16 after the USA drew 2-2 against Slovenia.

"We have to be focused for the next game," he said. "We have a big chance to go through after the draw of the United States.

"I hope on Wednesday to see the England team. This is not the England that I know. It is not the players in training. When I started as England manager I saw the same things when we played at Wembley. I hope for the next game that we forget this performance and forget to play with fear and without confidence.

"It is incredible the mistakes of the players, when they do not control the ball, the easy passes we missed. Everything. This is incredible for the level of the England players. It is the pressure. It is so big that the performance of the players is not as good as I know."

Algeria coach Rabah Saadane also claimed England played below their potential.

He said: "I was expecting better, I don't know what happened. The England team was not up to its level. They played better against the USA. It is up to the coach to draw the necessary conclusions towards the England team. We caused them problems with our short passes and style of play."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in