England to get full attention of Capello

Fabio Capello has confirmed he will be putting aside his media commitments in order to concentrate fully on his new job as the England manager.

The 61-year-old Italian has been doing various media work since leaving Real Madrid at the end of last season, including writing a column every Sunday with the Spanish sports newspaper Marca and punditry for the Italian television station RAI.

However, in his Marca column yesterday, Capello said he would drop his media work in order to devote all his attention to his new role with England.

"When I committed to Marca it was under the condition that I could leave if I signed for a team," Capello wrote. "Fortunately for me this moment has arrived and tomorrow I will be presented by the English FA. From now on I am going to concentrate on this new task 100 per cent, as I have always done when I have been coach of a team.

"Now I am responsible for a national team which will need my complete dedication, and the moment has arrived to stop this work just as I will do with Italian television.

The former Milan, Roma and Juventus coach added: "It will not be easy this new journey with England, but I am sure that it will be exciting.

"Tomorrow I will be presented as the England coach and I will start a new challenge in my career. Now what I hope is to return this confidence and that England will soon be once more among the best teams in the world."

In a farewell to the Marca readers, Capello said: "I hope that you all enjoy plenty of footballing success, although from now on, everyone must understand that my priority will be the England national team.

"For this, the English national team comes first in my hopes for the future although I am sure that Spanish football has a bright future."

Sir Trevor Brooking, meanwhile, feels that how to "evolve the structure" of the English coaching network remains a key objective following Capello's appointment and not just "parachuting" someone in "for the sake of it".

Although Capello set to be officially presented at a press conference in London today has brought with him an all-Italian back-room staff, discussions are on-going to have some home-grown presence in the England coaching ranks, with the Under-21 coach, Stuart Pearce, a leading candidate as well as Alan Shearer and Watford's highly-rated manager Aidy Boothroyd.

"I spoke to Fabio about the options and he is very relaxed about it," Brooking said. "He has a structure and we did not want to just do it for the sake of doing it. Somebody like Stuart, who has done really well in the last few months, will be very much part of the discussion to see how best to move this forward.

Brooking continued: "Stuart has been doing an excellent job with the Under-21s and the experience of managing the team with tournament football is really important. What happened late on during Steve's [McClaren] reign is that Stuart used to come along on the day of the game with the seniors to see what happens there.

"How you evolve the structure remains to be seen. You can parachute somebody in, but what is their role going to be? You don't want to put somebody in that position unless they feel comfortable. There are one or two coaches who could do it, but they are not necessarily the people who are going to take over in the top role."