Fabio Capello (AFP)

London - Fabio Capello on Thursday warned his England stars not to get carried away by the rapidly-escalating hype over their chances of lifting the World Cup in South Africa next year.

A flawless qualifying campaign, culminating in Wednesday's 5-1 demolition of Croatia, has seen England installed behind Brazil and Spain as third favourites to win Africa's first World Cup.

Capello believes he has the players to match the world's best but he recognises that further improvement - and good fortune with injuries - will be required if England are to finally end what will be, by next year, a 44-year wait to lift a major trophy.

"We made the first step, and we go to South Africa but it is only a first step," the Italian said on Thursday. "We are a good team, we are playing well but we have to stay with the feet on the floor.

"Always I've said we are a really good team. Our players are good players and their confidence has improved a lot.

"We can play against all the best teams in the world and we can win against them."

Having taken charge of a squad that had been left demoralised by its failure to reach Euro 2008, Capello has engineered a remarkable turnaround in England's fortunes that has been underpinned by his success in getting the likes of Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to reproduce their club form on the international stage.

An injury to any of that trio would severely dent England's prospects and Capello acknowledged he would have to prepare for that possibility, while ruling out any repeat of the situation at the last two World Cups, where England included the not-fully-fit David Beckham (2002) and Michael Owen (2006) in their squads.

"It is impossible to know who will be available," Capello said. "I will choose the players who are in the best moment of form, this is very important. And of course, they must be fit.

"I hope all the players will be ready and will be fit but we have to prepare another option if players will be injured and we will do that in our friendlies."

England's renaissance under Capello has been attributed to his success in commanding the respect of the players with what some have caricatured as a strict, disciplinarian approach. He puts it down to communication and steadily rising confidence.

"I have my system of work and the players follow me," he said. "I speak to them a lot and they understand what I ask of them always.

"We improve with every game and I think in the future we will be better."

Capello added: "When I agreed to become England manager I was sure these players were really good. I did not understand why they were not the same in the international team as for their club."

A 4-1 win in Croatia at the start of the qualifying campaign represented a psychological breakthrough, he now believes, and, since then, England's collective confidence has steadily grown.

"The win in Croatia was the first step and the confidence immediately went up but at first we always played well away and not at Wembley. Now in Wembley we are playing very well, like yesterday."