Capello Positive About Team's Progress Despite Suffering His First Setback

Fabio Capello may have suffered his first setback as England's head coach last night but the Italian departed St-Denis insisting he had gleaned significant positives despite seeing his side slip to anemic defeat to France.

The head coach suggested the performance was actually more encouraging than last month's debut victory over Switzerland at Wembley, even with the game surrendered, pointing to the quality among the hosts' ranks. Indeed, he insisted that his side would be ready for the autumn's World Cup qualifying campaign, when the competitive fixtures will be preceded by a friendly against the Czech Republic.

"We'll be ready by August 20 [for the friendly]," assured Capello. "As I told the players, I'm happy about what they did. We made progress compared to the Switzerland game, even though we won that game. I'm happy because I saw some very good things, especially because we were playing against a top-level team. That showed us our value and worth."

John Terry and David James were arguably culpable in conceding the first-half penalty which proved decisive, but Capello was not overly concerned at an apparent lack of pace in his side and suggested his team would emerge stronger from the experience, having made four substitutions at half-time and switched to 4-4-2. "Another thing I'm happy about is that I made the team play in two different ways," he added.

"I could see plenty of pluses. So my ideas are a lot clearer about the future. I have seen improvements. The way we played, we didn't let the opposition play too much and, especially, we played with personality. I'm happy the team showed they didn't want to lose the game and played right to the end. That's the most positive thing about the night, especially considering the level of the opposition."

"It's disappointing, but I think it's more about the team," said the captain for the night, Rio Ferdinand. "You could say we took a stride forward in certain areas: the players were not scared to get on the ball, we were passing it very well at times, maybe without creating many openings but I'm sure that will come.

"I'm disappointed because I'm very honored to be captain and it would have been nice to have got a win. There was no prouder man on the planet today, leading my country out, but it's not about personal accolades. It's about the team and we didn't get the result we wanted."