Fabio Capello has warned David James he will bring his World Cup dream to an end unless he can prove his fitness.

James was back home in England nursing a knee injury as the national team were being defeated by World Cup favourites Brazil in Doha.

It means the veteran goalkeeper has not started a game for England since the qualifier against Ukraine at Wembley on April 1.

It represents a long time out of the first XI for the man who is supposed to be Fabio Capello's first-choice. Certainly it appeared that way in August, when Capello hinted James was still his top man, even though he had missed the qualifying double-header in June to undergo shoulder surgery.
Since then, it is his knees that are causing James the problems.
And in revealing the full extent of his injury, Capello added a warning the 39-year-old needs to understand.
"I spoke with David James but he needs time (to recover) after every game," said Capello.
"Every time he plays, he can't train for two days afterwards so we preferred that he stayed at home.

"If he is fit, he will probably be with us (in South Africa). But if I choose the players they have to be fit - he has to be fit."

There is some confusion over how bad James' injury is.

Legendary Portsmouth goalkeeper Alan Knight is so unconvinced by talk that James is in serious trouble that he branded it a "cop-out" by Capello not to pick him for this weekend's game.

However, the Italian does tend to take a hard line in such situations, hence his decision to dump Ledley King when it became apparent he could not train ahead of England's friendly with Slovakia.

Robert Green excelled as James' initial deputy, with Ben Foster putting his case forward in the last two games, so Capello clearly has options. England are not due to play again until March 3, so there is plenty of time for James to get himself right.

After losing a dozen men for Saturday's defeat, Capello hoped some of his fringe players would step forward against the five-times World Cup winners.

None did though. Darren Bent and Jermaine Jenas were particularly disappointing given their lack of recent international opportunities, while Shaun Wright-Phillips, Wes Brown and Wayne Bridge were also disappointing.

In fact, apart from Foster, who had a solid game, only James Milner excelled. It brought to mind a statement from Sven-Goran Eriksson's days that it would only take the loss of certain key players for England's World Cup hopes to be destroyed.

Capello countered: "He (Eriksson) was only talking about two or three (players missing), not 12 or 13.

"Some players are really important. We hope they will be fit when they arrive at the World Cup.
"The thing is, we played against the best XI of Brazil. I know with our best XI, we can play."

Capello's chief grumble was that England were too slow when they had the ball, both in moving it and themselves around.

It allowed Brazil to get their defences set, something they are far quicker at doing now than used to be the case.

"They pressed a lot," he said. "We usually win the tackles, this time we lost a lot."

Brazil were not overtly impressive, content to play at exhibition match pace.

They did miss a penalty and hit a post though, which would have given the scoreline a far more lop-sided look.

For the past 12 months, Capello has given the impression that he views Spain as England's main threat in South Africa.

Now he has first-hand experience of a side remodelled by coach Dunga to win the Confederations Cup this summer, Capello feels it is Brazil who are one step ahead.

"It was the first time we played against a team that was so physically strong, fast and technically good," said Capello.

"Their style is very different to Spain.
"Spain are really good technically. They pass the ball a lot. But they are not as strong and they don't defend as well.

"When we played Spain they were very good but we still created four chances to score.

"Last night I counted two; once when James Milner crossed the ball and on another occasion when Wayne Rooney tried to shoot after a dribble.

"When you look at that, I don't think Brazil will be easy to beat."