Capello draws Buffon and Casillas comparisons with Hart

Fabio Capello believes Joe Hart has become the goalkeeper he has been searching for throughout his England reign.

And the Italian feels the Manchester City man has grown up to be a match for the best glove-men on the planet.

Capello has worked with the last two keepers to win the World Cup, Italy number one Gianluigi Buffon and Spain’s Iker Casillas, while he played with legendary Azzurri ace Dino Zoff.

Hart’s composed and confident display in his competitive debut - and only his second start - against Bulgaria on Friday only served to increase the theories of what might have been had Capello trusted his own instincts and gone with the rookie 23-year-old in South Africa.

The smile and wink after keeping out Glen Johnson’s inadvertent back-pass and the Peter Schmeichel-style save to thwart substitute Dimitar Rangelow summed up Hart’s calm and controlled approach to the job, continuing the impression made with his season-opening performance at Spurs last month.

Although Capello did not even entertain that debate, the England chief knows he finally does have a keeper he can properly trust, over two and a half years after identifying Hart as the coming man at the start of his spell as Three Lions chief.

And pressed over comparisons between the City stopper and Buffon and Casillas, Capello gave his new first choice the official seal of approval.

“I worked with Casillas and Buffon and Joe Hart is good, a really good keeper,” said Capello.

“Roberto Mancini has chosen him for Manchester City and I have chosen him for the England team. He improved a lot last year when he played at Birmingham. That was really important.

“Both the two keepers we had who stayed with us (Hart and Ben Foster) are in really good form.

“Hart is good. He is young. He can improve. He has to work but he has the personality a keeper needs.

“Always I remember when he was with the Under-21s he always had the same confident personality, it was always the same.

“But now, with the focus he has, that personality is really, really up.”

Hart was identified publicly by Capello within weeks of taking the job and after his opening game with Switzerland at Wembley, in which David James had been recalled as first choice, he said: “I have had to reinstate a 37-year-old goalkeeper but I have spotted one in the under-21s who is very interesting.”

Three months later, Hart made his debut as a second half substitute in Port of Spain against Trinidad and Tobago but it was not until March, when he again played the final 45 minutes against Mexico, that the keeper earned his second cap as Capello tried out James, Robert Green, Scott Carson and Foster.

That lack of experience saw Capello leaving Hart as his third-choice keeper in South Africa despite his doubts over both Green and James but the Italian insisted he was now seeing the keeper he had always anticipated the former Shrewsbury man could become, reaping the benefits of his 12 months on loan at Birmingham.

Hart will pick up cap number five in Basel tomorrow and Capello added: “I remember when I selected him two years ago he was not the same player. He did not have the same focus on the games or the training.

“He probably started to play in the first team too early and started to think ‘I am the best; I am here’.

“You have to understand what happens in the mind of the young player. Sometimes this happens.

“But after two years he has come back. The most important thing is the quality of the player. After that comes back he can play.

“He has improved a lot because of the one season he played in the Premier League last year. It was very important. He played every game, Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, every game. It was really important.”

Carson, who left the England camp on Friday after a family bereavement, will not be returning as he will be attending the funeral tomorrow, which means Watford’s Scott Loach will travel as the third keeper.