FA wants Englishman to succedCapello

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Football Association director Sir Trevor Brooking says the next England manager should be homegrown.

Italian Fabio Capello is contracted to be England coach until 2012 and is the FA's second overseas appointment after Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson.

"I think longer-term, after Fabio, we'd like to go English," the FA's director of development told BBC Radio 5 live.

The FA wants a young English coach to join Capello's backroom team as it attempts to groom a successor.

Former England full-back Stuart Pearce is already part of Capello's largely Italian team of coaches, and is also in charge of the under-21 side, while ex-Tottenham and Liverpool keeper Ray Clemence is also involved in the set-up.

"The third English coach is something the board is interested in," said Brooking, who did not rule out former England striker Alan Shearer as a possible candidate.

"We want to create a spell where we appoint English coaches and Fabio can help us enormously to bridge that gap and help that transition.

"We've got a short-term priority of the qualifying games but over the next couple of years the National Football Centre will hopefully be built, and that's going to be the hub site for the future development of English coaches.

"But it's important to have someone experienced in now for the next couple of years because the next two, four, six years are going to be a challenge for whoever's managing the team."

The FA has undertaken similar reviews in recent years, but Brooking is optimistic that the latest attempt at improving the fortunes of the national team and the overall coaching structure will yield real results.

"The main difference is that everybody seems to be talking positively and we have something to build on," added Brooking.

"The review, I'm hoping, is to look at budgets because the shame is that we're doing at a time which is tough for the FA from an economic point of view.

"I accept that the financial environment is tough, but there's no doubt that Spain, Germany and Holland who were the three European semi-finalists at the World Cup invested in coaching and player development as a priority in the last decade, and they are probably reaping the benefits now."

Brooking was part of the group of senior FA officials who decided that Capello should stay on a England boss, despite the woeful showing at the World Cup.

"We were all stunned at how poor we were," commented Brooking.

"We reflected on it as he did. From a pride point of view he was hugely disappointed - but he wanted to try to do better and help rebuild.

"Yeah, you could change the manager but is that really the core of the problem? We haven't won anything for 44 years and the group we were hoping would change that haven't been good enough."

Brooking identified the lack of first-team opportunities for promising young English talent as a particular reason for the national team's long-term difficulties.

"There are players in the under-19s and 21s but the big challenge is where are they going to get first team opportunities in the next few years?

"When I was 17 or 18 I was getting first-team chances at West Ham but now even at the end of the season for a mid-table team, the prize money of £750,000 for each place means clubs won't take the risk.

"It means you've got to be so special to get in at 17 or 18 and we're not producing those players who can force themselves into the team."

Brooking said his views were representative of many coaches in the English game.

"I'm only the mouthpiece for a lot of outstanding technical people in the academies and centres of excelle

nce," added Brooking.

"There's a lot of knowledge but they are frustrated that we haven't been able to get that investment.

"We've got to train specialist coaches in the younger age groups and there has to be an investment in that.

"In the past a decent coach in the 5-11 age group wanting a full-time job would have to move up to 17-18 years old level."

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