Fabio Capello has been set a daunting task as the new England manager, with the FA expecting the team to reach the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup and 2012 European Championships.
The Italian, who was appointed five months ago, has been set a difficult target of getting England to the last four of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and then achieving another semi-final place at Euro 2012, being held in Poland and Ukraine.
The targets come as part of the Football Association’s four-year strategy which also includes targets to host the 2018 World Cup, opening the National Football Centre at Burton by 2010, creating 20,500 new amateur teams and recruiting around 8,000 new referees.
Capello, who also continues in his attempts to learn English, was unfazed by the ambitious targets set out by the FA.
“We must be positive and my personal objective in every team I have coached was to go to the top,” Capello told BBC Sport.
“I am not under any pressure. It’s no problem for me and it’s no surprise these targets have been set. I believe that it’s important to have these targets and to work towards them.
“We should all be confident of this because the team I have at the moment is capable of reaching these objectives.”
Capello also backed plans for the National Football Centre - a project which has been dogged by delays and funding shortages since the idea was first put together by Howard Wilkinson in 2001.
“It is important to have a centre, to have a home - a place where we can go back and be together, spend time together, feel the spirit of the shirt we are wearing, regroup and achieve the targets that we want to achieve,” he said.
“As we all know, only 38% of players in the Premier League are English.
“But having said, that there are lot of young players at the Under-21 level and younger that are very good so there is plenty of talent.”
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