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Capello insists on 11-day England boot camp

Independent, The (London), May 13, 2008 by Sam Wallace

Fabio Capello has demonstrated that he will run the England squad on his own terms by scheduling the longest-ever post-season training camp in recent memory - an 11-day stretch at the end of this month. The Italian told the Football Association that the scarcity of time he had spent with his players since starting in the job in January meant that he was not prepared to compromise.

All Premier League clubs apart from Chelsea, Manchester United and Portsmouth have now sent their players on holiday, although it will be a short break for those who were named in Sunday's 31-man England squad by Capello. The manager has privately expressed frustration that he has had only six days with his squad since taking the job - and two of those have been matchdays. Hence he is determined to make the most of the time around the friendlies against the USA on 28 May and Trinidad and Tobago four days later.

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At Capello's stipulation, the players will meet up on the Thursday before the America game with one day's grace for the Chelsea and United contingent involved in the European Cup final. Capello rejected the notion that the players should meet on the Sunday before. He did not want their fitness compromised by two full weeks without training.

Although the two games at the end of the season will be something of an anticlimax following the European Cup final a week tomorrow, Capello regards them as crucial to making major decisions about his team ahead of September's 2010 World Cup qualifiers. He will pick his captain after these two games and the players will also have to get used to his regime in which they are encouraged to rest in their hotel rooms in the afternoons after training. For those players not likely to feature in the team it will be a long 11 days.

The England manager visited the site of the FA's proposed National Football Centre in Burton-upon-Trent yesterday with chief executive Brian Barwick. Capello is a keen supporter of the project which will be built, although perhaps not completed, during his tenure in charge. He was due to give a speech at the League Managers' Association awards dinner in Nottingham last night.

The call-up for Manchester City's Joe Hart means that Shrewsbury Town, the 21-year-old goalkeeper's former club, will earn a further 500,000 as part of the transfer deal agreed in 2006. Capello has released five of his senior squad picks - Hart, Tom Huddlestone, David Wheater, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Theo Walcott - either to play or be on stand-by for the Under-21s game against Wales in Wrexham on Thursday.

Another new face in the squad, Blackburn's Stephen Warnock, said he found out via club-mate David Bentley that he was in the squad. "I got a phone call from Bents on the way home from Birmingham saying 'cancel your holidays you're going away with the England squad'," he said. "That was the first I heard of it. It was a bit of a surprise to be honest. I knew that if I came to Blackburn and played week-in, week-out, I'd give myself a chance."

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Capello insists on 11-day England boot camp

Independent, The (London), May 13, 2008 by Sam Wallace

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