Play summer friendlies or risk your international career, warns Capello

ENGLAND players who skip friendlies at the end of the season could damage their international careers, coach Fabio Capello said.

England play the United States at Wembley on 28 May and travel to the Caribbean to face Trinidad & Tobago on 1 June in friendlies before they begin their 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign in September.

"If a player doesn't love to play for England then perhaps he should stay at home," Capello said during a visit to the African nation of Lesotho, where he is part of an FA delegation.

"Players must love the England shirt and that is all there is to it. If someone doesn't want to come and play for England, it means they obviously don't love the shirt enough. They must prefer to go on holiday."

Former England goalkeeper Ray Clemence, now the Football Association's head of national teams, travelled with Capello to witness at first hand the Football Association's moves in Africa to develop the game at grass roots level.

He said: "This programme is very important. There are two aspects to it. One is to encourage African footballers. There are quite a number in the game at the moment. There is a lot of talent out here but the coaching they get is limited.

"It gives us a chance to give something back to the game. We have been involved in projects like this for ten years in Lesotho, Malawi and Botswana.

"We are trying to provide as many level one coaches as we can so they can go out in the communities and coach the youngsters and make them better players. We want them to become self-sufficient.

"It is lovely to have the players at the top end but you have to have some grass roots and have a wide base at the moment. The sooner we can get that, the better it will be for African football.

"You can see some of the technical ability some of the young boys have got and that needs helping along and nurtured and getting level one coaches out there will help that."

Clemence, meanwhile, believes England keeper Scott Carson is still suffering from a lack of confidence after his horror blunder against Croatia five months ago but is backing the Liverpool player to eventually recover.

Carson, currently on loan to Aston Villa, has looked out of sorts since he gifted Niko Krancjar the opening goal in Croatia's 3-2 win at Wembley in November which resulted in England being eliminated from Euro 2008.

But ex-England goalkeeping coach Clemence has faith in the 22-year-old to bounce back in the same way as he has seen encouraging signs regarding Paul Robinson's recent form after his blunder in the first meeting with Croatia 18 months ago.

Clemence said: "Carson has had a little bit of a downturn since the Croatia game and looks to be lacking a little bit of confidence at the moment.

"He is only 22 and, the younger you are, the more criticism hurts and he did take a lot for that game against Croatia when there were other people on the field that night who didn't play that well either.

"Unfortunately he has taken the brunt of it since and I've been at a couple of grounds to watch Villa where the fans haven't been the kindest to him.

"It is difficult at the moment for him but I know him, he is a strong character, he is young and he will bounce back and the ability will not leave him."

Clemence, who was capped 67 times for his country, added: "Criticism is just part of growing up as a goalkeeper. We all have to accept if you are going to be a goalkeeper you need to be very thick skinned because you will get more criticism than anyone else.

"You have to keep picking yourself up. It is just having the confidence to show those abilities and the mental strength."

Clemence has seen Tottenham keeper Robinson pick himself up after being much maligned for his 'air shot' when he failed to connect with a Gary Neville back pass in Croatia.

He said: "Paul is rebuilding things. It has been a difficult year for him and he got left out of the team and that was a blow to him as well.

"But I've seen signs since Juande Ramos brought him back into the team that he is getting to where he was when (he was] the England keeper."