Wayne Rooney lauds impact of England boss Fabio Capello
Manchester United star pays credit to Capello for improving his international goalscoring record
4 September 2009
WAYNE ROONEY has thanked Fabio Capello for turning him into the most lethal striker in world football.
Rooney scored an incredible 10 goals for England last season and now intends to kick-start the new campaign by scoring against Slovenia on Saturday and Croatia next Wednesday.
It’s a big breakthrough for a player who went more than three years without scoring a single competitive goal, between 2004 and 2007. And Rooney puts it down to his new manager.
He said: “I think his presence when he first arrived was clear for everyone to see. He is a fearsome man, strong, passionate and wants to win. He has definitely helped me and the team.
“He said to me to get in front of the goal more. He is on the training pitch all the time helping me and telling me to do certain things.
“Sometimes you will watch the video back and watch different games and analyse them. Even in training you could be on the video later on for mistakes, so you always have to be on top of your game.”
Capello told Rooney to be more clinical in front of goal and the striker took him at his word.
He added: “I agreed with that – and not only for England but Manchester United as well. There was a stage when I was playing too deep and not in the box enough to get into goalscoring positions.
“Obviously through Sir Alex and Fabio the two of them have tried to get me to play further up the pitch and get in better positions to score more goals. Hopefully now I am giving myself a better chance of scoring by getting in more dangerous positions.”
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