Fabio Capello is the right man to turn England's fortunes around, Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti said last weekend.

Capello was appointed England coach on Friday and Ancelotti believes his fellow Italian had the pedigree to turn a team of perennial underachievers into serial winners.

"He has inherited an England team with extremely high potential," Ancelotti told reporters in Japan.

"Organising that talent and playing a system that can bring the best out of them will be very important. I hope Capello does well and I'm sure he can."

Capello succeeds Steve McClaren, who was fired after England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. Capello becomes the country's second foreign coach after Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson (2001-06).

England's appointment of Capello received a lukewarm reception from FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who alluded to Capello's limited grasp of the English language.

"It is important that the coach can communicate directly to his players and not through an interpreter," Blatter told a news conference in Tokyo following FIFA's executive board meeting.

"England had already broken that principle (of not hiring from overseas) when they had a Swedish coach. But the personality of a coach is also important.

"I don't mind foreign coaches," Blatter added. "But if my memory isn't failing me I have never seen Spain, Italy or Germany hire a foreign coach for their national side."

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.