LONDON (AP) — England's friendly against Hungary on Wednesday could provide a glimpse into the future for Fabio Capello, or it could just be a reality check about the paucity of emerging talent available as he rebuilds the team ahead of European Championship qualifying.
One thing seems certain — and both Capello and captain Steven Gerrard are almost encouraging it: The players will be jeered at Wembley Stadium as many fans get their first chance to vent their anger after a humiliating World Cup exit.
Gerrard said on Tuesday he would join in the abuse if he was a fan in the 90,000-capacity stadium, which is expected to be only two-thirds full.
"I’m sure there will be boos at times, but we have to be men and take it on the chin — we deserve it, we let them down," he said. "Hopefully with time we can show we are a good team and we are desperate to make them happy in the future. We have to show how sorry we are with our performance on the pitch."
But Gerrard insisted Capello’s coaching credentials should not be in question despite the Italian facing intense scrutiny of his tactics and man-management in South Africa.
"It would be stupid and naive not having confidence in him moving forward," Gerrard said. "You can’t just shift the blame to the managers in these situations."
Capello plans to start against Hungary with the 10 players that have been retained from the 23-man World Cup squad, with Bobby Zamora also set to be handed his England debut alongside striker Wayne Rooney.
In the second half, though, Capello wants to introduce players such as 18-year-old Jack Wilshere and 20-year-old Arsenal teammate Kieran Gibbs, who he hopes will steer England to the Euro 2012 title despite having never played at such a high international level before.
"It is always important to freshen things up and change things about a bit when you underperform and things don’t go your way in a big tournament," Gerrard said. "It would be very unfair on these young lads if all the experienced lads were excluded from the squad and they were all thrown in at the deep end together. You need the right mix of experience and youth.
"Then we can regroup, move forward together, get a positive result and hopefully that will start the rebuilding process and turn things around from South Africa."
While Joe Hart, who went to South Africa but didn’t play, will be making his first international start, the Manchester City goalkeeper’s starting place will be under pressure from Ben Foster, who is set to appear in the second half.
There are only two goalkeepers in the squad after Paul Robinson quit international football despite being recalled.
England’s Euro 2012 qualifying campaign begins in September with matches against Bulgaria and Switzerland.
Hungary’s return to Wembley will evoke memories of the so-called "match of the century" in 1953 when its 6-3 victory condemned England to its first home loss by a non-British side.
Hungary, which hasn’t qualified for a major tournament since the 1986 World Cup, will be led for the first time by coach Sandor Egervari, who is preparing for Euro 2012 qualifiers against Sweden and Moldova next month.
Egervari took Hungary to the bronze medal at the 2009 Under-20 World Cup in Egypt and also won three Hungarian league titles as coach, in 1999 and 2003 with MTK and in 2000 with Dunaferr.
Egervari has called up only two players to the national team from the youth squad — Vladimir Koman and Akos Elek — saying he preferred not to handicap the under-21 team, which plays a crucial European Championship qualifier Wednesday against Bosnia.
Egervari and Sandor Csanyi, the millionaire banker who took over the presidency of Hungary’s football federation in July, have both tried to lower expectations about the team’s performance in the coming years, saying that they expect the squad to have better chance of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup than Euro 2012.
