Source: Telegraph
England World Cup squad: Robert Green delighted with Fabio Capello's approach
"Everyone else had gone and he walked over and said 'are you ready to play?' I said 'of course'," Green recalls. "He said the same to Matthew and he said 'of course'. He nodded and replied 'you are both starting' and walked off. [LNB]"It's as straightforward as that. No song and dance. It was just 'there you go, do your job'. I know it sounds simple but it gives you confidence." [LNB] Related ArticlesWho will make World Cup 23?Joe Cole states his caseBarry injury: fans' verdictRooney 'will be fine for World Cup'David Beckham plans Fifa dash to fly World Cup flagScholes offers guaranteesHow times have changed. Green recalls, ruefully, how he spent five years involved with England "and played something like 45 minutes" prior to Capello's appointment. [LNB]"You are involved in every squad, pretty much, and only to play for a few minutes then it must mean that someone is scared of giving you a game," the 30-year-old goalkeeper says pointedly. [LNB]Confidence, and no fear. They have been Capello's buzzwords throughout this campaign, along with a "winning mentality". It came with the start of his reign with Green who didn't make the first squad - sensing immediately a shift in the way the England players would be treated following the regimes of Steve McClaren and Sven-Goran Eriksson. [LNB]"Everybody's in the same position and, if you do something wrong, you will get told no matter who you are," Green says of Capello's approach. [LNB]"That's something else that is new. It is a real leveller. In previous squads there were people who, for want of a better word, were untouchable. [LNB]"Now everyone is treated the same and if you train well you will play. It sounds basic but it's the implementation of it that makes the difference. [LNB]"He doesn't just talk about it, he does it. You know where you are. Very clear, very well-defined and you are in doubt about it. As I say, you will get told. [LNB]"And all of a sudden it does matter. You turn up for a meeting 10 minutes early because it does matter. The points he makes are also clear and it does build a professionalism beyond what has been expected before. [LNB]"You are expected to behave in a certain manner, come across in a certain manner and all of a sudden you feel yourself doing it without having to think about it. [LNB]"That detail is infectious. I speak to Kevin Hitchcock, the goalkeeping coach at West Ham, and he says that Glenn Hoddle is the first manager he played under who went that extra mile in terms of the small details. [LNB]"For example, in the days before the Premier League had a contract with one ball supplier, each club had their own balls and he [Hoddle] would say 'we are playing this team next week and they use these balls so we will train with these balls all week'. [LNB]"When you have that level of detail it makes you think 'perhaps I should be doing even more myself' and you push yourself to another level." [LNB]Such desire for improvement is something that Green, who will board the plane on Monday for England's pre-World Cup training camp in Austria, selected as one of three goalkeepers with David James and Joe Hart, responds to. [LNB]"I want to walk away from football, when I retire and say 'I gave that everything' and then I will do something else and give that everything because that's me, that's the way I am and I will do that," he says. [LNB]"For example, I use a speed coach, one of the GB athletics coaches. It's about constant improvement. [LNB]"Richard Branson, when he brought out Virgin planes looked at turnaround times. He went to see the quickest airlines and cut it down by 10 minutes and thought 'I'm sure we can do it even quicker' and he went to look at Formula One motor racing, with the pit-stop crews, and he cut it down by something ridiculous by just taking on board what they do. [LNB]"So I say to myself 'I need to stay fit and need to stretch' so I go to a Pilates instructor. I've been going for nearly four years and not missed a game. These are things I organise myself. [LNB]"I will be at the training ground until 7pm. I speak to the young guys now and they go home at lunchtime and I say 'what's so important in your life that you can't dedicate more to being a player?'" [LNB]Green has played eight times for England under Capello, starting five matches in a row before his unfortunate sending-off against Ukraine last autumn. [LNB]But it's a match he remembers for other reasons. "I have loved every second of it [the qualifying campaign]," he says. [LNB]"I felt at home in the environment, walking out and having flares thrown out at me by 31,000 people in the Ukraine. The bigger the atmosphere, the bigger the occasion, the bigger the game, the better I felt. [LNB]"When we played Croatia at Wembley there were always going to be comparisons with the previous game [in failing to qualify for Euro 2008 when England lost 3-2]. [LNB]"But when I walked out, with 90,000 people there, the atmosphere was electric and sometimes England games are not like that. Everyone was up for it. Before the game started I said to myself 'no way we can lose this'. [LNB]"I looked at the team and we played like we were 10-foot tall and absolutely steam-rollered them. If you play without the shackles and burdens then you play like you did when you were a kid. They say a happy footballer is a good footballer and that's what it's like." [LNB]"That Euro 2008 failure ushered in Capello and, given the atmosphere around England, it made it easier for the Italian to make changes. [LNB]"It was similar to getting beaten 10-0 and then coming in on the Monday and the manager saying 'this is how we are doing it now'. You will have absolutely no comeback," Green explains. [LNB]"You can't exactly say 'it worked for us before, why are we changing it' because it didn't work. And therefore we are changing it. [LNB]"He could say 'this is what we are doing, this is the recipe for success'. He's a very strong person and a strong personality and that comes across in the manner of his coaching, the way he speaks to us and the way he deals with you [media] guys." [LNB]Even so the goalkeeping position is one with England that has come under constant scrutiny. Green has faced the accusation that he is not good enough. [LNB]"If you read every newspaper or listened to every radio station and behaved as if your life depended on that then you would be in an emotional turmoil. Essentially you have to stay true to yourself. That is enough," he says. [LNB]"And, believe me, no-one is going to write anything, say anything or do anything to me that is going to put greater pressure on myself than I already have done so. [LNB]"I can confidently say that if there is any criticism levelled at me then I have done that already. It's what happens when you try to be honest and hard-working." [LNB]
