England's Wayne Rooney (left) battles for the ball with Carlos Bocanegra of the US during their international friendly at Wembley on Wednesday. England won 2-0. - AP

LONDON (AP):

FABIO CAPELLO has England playing the way he wants.

The Italian coach, who was hired to shake up the squad that failed to qualify for Euro 2008, saw plenty of signs in Wednesday's 2-0 victory over the United States that England won't have the same problems trying to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

"The England team performed. All the players played very well," Capello said after two well-worked goals by John Terry and Steven Gerrard proved too much for the Americans at Wembley.

"In every situation we chose the best way to play. The first 50 minutes the US pressed a lot, but we played good football. Today the team played like in training. The pressing and tackling were very good. It's another step forward," he said.

Using the same players who failed to qualify for next month's European Championship under Steve McClaren, Capello used a shape and a style which created plenty of chances against a US line-up, which won 3-0 at Euro 2008 qualifiers Poland in March.

"We did a lot of movement, good movement," said Capello, the former AC Milan, AS Roma, Juventus and Real Madrid coach, who now conducts his news conferences in English rather than translated Italian. "When we needed to play long ball, we played long ball. When we needed to pass, we passed the ball. I liked the pressing and that we got back the ball quickly. We didn't wait a lot of time to win back the ball."

First shut-out victory

Capello was also pleased to get his first shut-out victory, which takes his record to 2-1 after a 2-1 win over Switzerland and a 1-0 loss to France, also in friendlies. Because England failed to qualify for the Euros, he does not face any competitive games until September when the team goes to Andorra and Croatia in qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup.

Gerrard said the players could also see improvements and that would help get over some of the hurt of missing out on the Euros.

"We are certainly on the right path, but there is still a long way to go to get to the level we want to perform at," the Liverpool midfielder said, "Not going to the Euro finals has been hitting home for a long time, ever since we failed to qualify. We are going to have to suffer that disappointment throughout the summer."

Now the team flies to Trinidad and Tobago for Sunday's friendly. Capello is leaving behind seven of the nine players who took part in last week's Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea.

One of them is Chelsea captain Terry, who was England's leader against the Americans and scored on a header from David Beckham's 38th-minute free kick. Last week, Terry was in tears after missing a shoot-out penalty, which would have won the Champions League for the Blues, but effectively handed the title to United.

Good performance

"It made me happy, he is a good captain and it was a good performance," Capello said of Terry, "I'm very happy because I saw from him on the pitch what I asked for before the game. It was important for John Terry to score. He can go on his holiday happy now."

Others players who won't be going to Trinidad and Tobago are Wayne Rooney, Owen Hargreaves, Wes Brown, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Joe Cole. From the Champions League final, only Man U defender Rio Ferdinand and Chelsea fullback Wayne Bridge are part of the 20-man squad.