Cappelo's Croatia Concern

Fabio Capello believes England will perform with more confidence in Croatia than they have when playing at Wembley.

Croatia have never lost a competitive game at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, but Capello feels his side may be under less pressure there than at home.

"When we play at home we don't play with a lot of confidence, so I prefer to play away from home," the England coach said.

"We are very good technically but sometimes during games we don't do it."

Both captain John Terry and striker Jermain Defoe have stated England would be happy to come away with a draw from Wednesday's World Cup qualifier in Zagreb, but Capello believes a win is possible.

He said: "I think we played every game better and with more confidence, in this moment I know Croatia and their strong points.

"I'm sure tomorrow we will play well. I understand the spirit of the group, the spirit of the team is going up."

Capello's men know from experience that their results against Croatia are likely to have a significant bearing on their hopes of progressing to South Africa in 2010.

The Croats beat England home and away en route to Euro 2008, their 3-2 victory at Wembley in November ending England's bid to reach the finals in Austria and Switzerland.

But the Italian doesn't believe that result will have a bearing on Wednesday's outcome.

PHIL MCNULTY BLOG

"I know what happened in the past but I always think about the future," he said.

"It's a new game, a new season and the players now aren't thinking about what happened in the last game, they're focusing on this game.

"We're a different team, with a different manager."

Meanwhile, captain John Terry maintains the memory of the defeats in Zagreb and at Wembley will be as good a motivator as any team talk.

He said: "Sometimes it's called for and I will do that to get the group going, but a calm head is sometimes a wise head.

"The memories of what happened here last time will be enough to get the lads fighting.

"Their home record speaks for itself, we have to respect them and that's what we will do.

"But we've moved forward from a year ago, we're in better shape than we were then, and we need to move forward with confidence.

"We didn't have that at Wembley, but here it's a fresh start, and a new campaign."

Terry also acknowledged England needed to repay their travelling fans after receiving boos during their last outing against Andorra.

"We owe every single England fan success, good performances and results," he said.

"The fans are paying a lot of money to see us and we need to improve."

England lie second in Group Six after beating Andorra 2-0 in their opening qualifier on Saturday, while Croatia top the pool following their 3-0 win against Kazakhstan.

Only the group winners are guaranteed a place in South Africa, with eight of the nine runners-up entering the play-offs and the one remaining runner-up missing out altogether.