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By CHRIS WHEELER, NORTHERN SPORTS WRITER Published: 06: 35 AEDT, 12 February 2026 | Updated: 06: 35 AEDT, 12 February 2026 3 View comments Former England boss Fabio Capello has warned Thomas Tuchel that the demands of Premier League football could wreck his World Cup hopes. Capello was in charge for the 2010 tournament in South Africa, when England crashed out after a humiliating 4-1 defeat to Germany in Bloemfontein, and he quit two years later after the FA stripped John Terry of the captaincy. The 79-year-old Italian coach believes England have a team to rival any in world football after qualifying for this summer’s tournament with a 100 per cent record, but believes that many of Tuchel’s players will be physically drained by the time they arrive in the US because of the gruelling Premier League season. ‘Tuchel took the national team to the World Cup without the players being exhausted, ’ said Capello. ‘I know for a fact that when I was England manager, in September, October, and November, we could play against the strongest teams in the world without any problem. ‘But in March and April, the players start to show signs of fatigue, and by June they are always very tired because the English league is extremely physically demanding. ‘The psychological pressure there isn't as great as in Spain or Italy from the press, but the fatigue in England is purely physical. ’ Fabio Capello (pictured in 2011) offered England coach Thomas Tuchel a word of caution The Three Lions boss will have to manage a side exhausted by the rigours of a full Premier League season Speaking to the Hat-Trick show on Egyptian channel ON Sport, Capello also recalled the time he was ordered not to play former England captain David Beckham at Real Madrid by president Ramon Calderon in 2007 because he refused to sign a new contract at the Bernabeu before joining LA Galaxy. In the end, Beckham was recalled and helped Real pip rivals Barcelona to the La Liga title before leaving for MLS after the Spaniards failed to block the move. ‘Beckham had signed with Los Angeles at the end of January, and this had been an offence to Real Madrid – they cannot accept that someone doesn’t sign when they are offered, ’ said Capello, who a year later recalled Beckham to the England squad for his 100th cap and briefly gave him back the captaincy. ‘The president asked me not to play him anymore because he said it was an offence to the club. We cannot let a player do this to us. I accepted it for eight or nine days, and he continued to train very seriously, to do things well. ‘I went to the president and told him that, “for me, from this moment on, he returns to the team and there is no other discussion because I am the one who decides the players and not you on the board”. ‘David Beckham was a very important player, a good player, and he asked me after returning from the Real Madrid meeting what I thought of Milan. I told him to go play for a great team, and he listened to me and went to play for Milan too (on loan from the Galaxy) because Beckham is a very serious person. ’
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