FOREIGN or not, Fabio Capello knows England “don’t do friendlies” against Germany. He will field as strong a team as possible in Berlin on Wednesday, though his plans will have disrupted last night when Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand [back problem] and Wayne Rooney [chest infection] pulled out of the squad. Neither played in their side’s 5-0 win over Stoke. Injuries have given Capello the chance to experiment in “one or two” positions, with Tottenham’s Darren Bent and Aston Villa’s Gabriel Agbonlahor the likeliest beneficiaries.

Capello is also without the two Coles, Ashley and Joe, and Emile Heskey, allhors de combat. He rates his captain, John Terry, “only 50-50” in fitness terms and will not consider David Beckham until he is playing regularly again. Deprived of some of his regulars, Capello included Bent and promoted Agbonlahor, Ashley Young and the Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart from the under21s to the squad he named last night. The coach focused largely on Bent, saying Spurs’ reborn striker had every chance of adding to his haul of three caps.

Capello said he had been impressed by Bent’s recent contributions for Tottenham and would invite him and Peter Crouch to share the task of filling Heskey’s size nines, possibly a half apiece. Still only 24, Tottenham’s attacking spearhead was playing Uefa Cup football for Ipswich seven years ago, scored his first Premier League goal in April 2002 and, after making his England debut against Uruguay just before the 2006 World Cup, was unlucky to be overlooked, in favour of Theo Walcott for the finals in Germany. He thrust himself back into international contention by scoring a hat-trick in his club’s Uefa Cup drubbing of Dinamo Zagreb 10 days ago, followed that up with both goals in the 2-1 victory at Manchester City last weekend and, as the man in form, deserves his chance.

Outlining the reasons for Bent’s return, Capello said: “Bent is scoring a lot of goals so this is his time. He is young, he is fast and his movement is good. He knows where to run and find space off the ball. ”

Injuries necessitated changes but the coach intended to minimise them, anxious to extend a winning habit built up over England’s 100% start to the World Cup qualifiers. “I will have to pick different players to replace those who are injured and have brought some of the under21s into the squad, but when you introduce young players it is right to have one, or a maximum of two, in the team. It is dangerous to have more, and we’re playing Germany, not Trinidad, after all.”

At the other end of the spectrum, an era would seem to be passing with the omission of two of the old icons, Beckham and Michael Owen. Both could yet be back but Capello was making no promises. He explained: “Beckham is not in the squad because you can only be selected if you are playing for your club. When he goes to Milan [on loan] he will have to be playing in the team to get in for me.”

Of Owen’s continued exclusion, he said: “I watched him against Fulham and he played 20 minutes. He was out for a long time and playing him would not be an experiment, we know him very well.”

The bigger picture demanded continued progress. “Confidence is the big difference between now and when these players failed before,” the coach said. “In my first game we played Switzerland and played without confidence. Now, after winning four World Cup qualifying games, I can see it in the players and it is very important for me to keep that going.”

How had he improved the morale of a team that hit rock bottom in failing to qualify for Euro 2008? “First, by talking to them. We had team meetings and I spoke about their mistakes, and about my system [of play]. I asked them what they were thinking, what was missing and were they ready for us to work together? I spoke a lot to remove the fear they had. I saw all the games they’d played before I took over, studied them and understood why the results were bad. When they had that last game at home to Croatia to qualify, they were gripped by fear. That’s why English players were playing well for their clubs but weren’t the same for the national team. Step by step, we improve with every game, every training session. After the run we’ve had, I’ll be very interested in the next competitive game we play at Wembley [against Ukraine on April 1]. That will be a real test, and I’m sure the fans will help us this time because they have more confidence in us now.”

In the meantime, there is Germany calling . . .