Capello happy with result

April 2, 2009

England maintained their 100% World Cup qualifying record last night with a 2-1 win over Ukraine and coach Fabio Capello prised his players for their effort.

“I’m happy because we won the game - it was very important because we knew Ukraine would be a very strong team,”

“They’ve just started their league and are fresh, while we are at the end of our season. This is a big difference.

“The players played very well and without fear.”

Croatia sit second in group 6, 5 points behind England. England are looking ver comfortable and confident that they will be taking their place at the World Cup in 2010 but they were made to worry last night as Andriy Shevchenko looked to have earned his side a draw after Peter Crouch had given England the lead, but captain John Terry popped up with a late winner.

“We played the first half very well, the second a little less,” said Capello, whose only defeats as England manager came in friendlies against France and Spain.

“In midfield we lost a lot of balls and the movement was not as we had prepared.

“We played slowly and missed a lot of easy and important passes. Ukraine were fresh so we needed to play more quickly and this is impossible with us at the end of our season. The fans were very good, noisy when they needed to be, and they helped us.”

Captain Terry praised his side’s character as they moved to within touching distance of the 2010 finals in South Africa.

“We were disappointed to concede a goal late on but showed great character to come back and win the game, so there are some real positives,” said Terry.

“It meant a lot [to score] and it has given us the win, so I’m delighted. There was some great fight and desire from the lads, we’re not settling for 1-1 and we went on to win the game.

“We’re in a great position in the group and this has really set us up. Ukraine have a game in hand but this puts us in a great position.

“We’ve got Kazakhstan away and Andorra at home so it’s two tough games next but hopefully six points. At the moment things are going well.”

Capello added: “It will be very long until the Kazakhstan game and I hope when we start training for the next two games the players will be in a better physically condition then they are now.”

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