Capello hails 'fantastic' Walcott

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Capello's faith in the Arsenal teenager, who was preferred in the starting line-up to David Beckham, was more than justified as England overwhelmed Slaven Bilic's side, with Wayne Rooney also on target.

"I decided to put Theo into the first eleven because I saw the game against Andorra at the weekend and also how he was in training - and at this moment he is fantastic psychologically and physically." said Capello.

"It is very dangerous for defenders against Walcott. At this moment, he is difficult to contain.

"Of course, he is a young player and I said after the Andorra game that he will play fantastic games - but also that he will not play the same level in all of the games.

"When he plays like against Croatia, it is fantastic, but when he plays not so good, we have to support him. This is very important."

England returned home with a maximum haul of six points from their opening two games but Capello is too wise and experienced to start claiming the hard work has been done.

He said: "The result was better than I expected, but I said in the build-up that I had a lot of confidence in the players because we have all worked very well in the 10 days or so we stayed together.

"That was the case during the training and every moment. It is very important. We played well, we played like a team, very compact and with no problems. We studied the style of Croatia and we tried to make it difficult for them to play their usual style.

"But let's not get carried away. We have just started. It is the second game of the qualifying round. It is a good performance, a good result, but it is nothing. It is only one game. There is much still to do and games like Belarus and Ukraine will also be tough."