My dream is to be manager at West Ham, says Di Canio

The news will delight Hammers fans where Di Canio played for four years and where he became an idol for fans with his spectacular goals.

He said: "I am going to retire at the end of the season, I'm a little too old to carry on playing so I will take up managing next year. I hope to have the same success as a coach that I did as a player.

"My dream would be to manage in the Premier League because English football is the best in the world and my dream in particular would be to manage at West Ham - that would be perfect.

"I spent four seasons there and I would love to go back and win something with them. The fans are fantastic there and the atmosphere at Upton Park was always so special.

"Every weekend I watch all the English games on TV but I always look out for the West Ham score, I have a special place for them in my heart.

"When I watch the Premier League I am always proud to see players that were young boys when I was at West Ham - I'm talking about Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Trevor Sinclair.

"When I was there they were really young so I saw them grow up into men and players and I am proud to watch them playing at the top level in the Champions League.

"The standard in the Premier League was always good but these players and Jermain Defoe also stand out for me as the best English players."

Di Canio had a remarkable eight years in Britain first with Celtic in 1996 moving to Sheffield Wednesday the following year before joining West Ham in 1999 and staying until 2003.

He left the club after a row with then manager Glenn Roeder and spent a year at Charlton before returning to his boyhood team Lazio where he had also played.

In 2001, Di Canio won the FIFA Fair Play Award after shunning a goalscoring opportunity the previous December when Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard was lying injured on the ground. FIFA described the act as "a special act of good sportsmanship."

But the Italian was also remembered for his fiery temper and the infamous incident where he pushed referee Paul Alcock to the ground after he was sent off during a Sheffield Wednesday match against Arsenal.

He said: "I'm a bit different now, I try to keep control of my temper but I sometimes still get a rush of blood." (Di Canio was given a four-match ban last week after insulting a referee last Sunday at his current club Cisco Roma.)

The Italian, who will be 40 later this year, also praised FA chiefs for picking Fabio Capello as the national team squad - despite their previous stormy past.

While on a far East tour in 1996 with AC Milan Di Canio and Capello had a blazing stand up row peppered with f-words in the changing room after the bespectacled coach substituted him at half time.

Di Canio said: "We have had our problems in the past. Capello has a strong character and he is very determined. Things like that happen between players and managers all the time.

"I met him after that and we shook hands and it was all put behind us. These things can happen in football.

"But the FA have made a good choice with Capello. He won in Italy and Spain, everywhere he has been he has won something.

"I think he will do a great job. He is an intelligent man and when he wants something he will work 24 hours a day to get it."

Di Canio starts his year-long manager's course at Coverciano - the Italian equivalent of Bisham Abbey in the summer.