World Cup winner George Cohen reckons Fabio Capello has all the traits of Sir Alf Ramsey to succeed as England manager.

Capello has adopted a much stricter approach to team affairs since taking over following Steve McClaren's ill-fated Euro 2008 campaign.

The Italian, who has masterminded eight straight qualifying wins ahead of the games with Ukraine and Belarus, intends to limit the time his players will get with family members at the World Cup - in stark contrast to Germany 2006 when the now infamous WAGs drew as many headlines for goings-on off the field as what the team did on the pitch.

Cohen, though, feels such discipline is perhaps necessary as England look to end more than a 40-year quest for the game's biggest prize.

"I only met him once, but looked him in the eye and saw he was steel-minded," said Cohen, an ambassador for official England team sponsor Nationwide Building Society.

"My first thought was 'there is something that reminds me of Alf Ramsey'.

"Everything I hear tells me this guy has got it right.

"I had the feeling that he does not say much, but that what he does say has a lot of meaning to it.

"He has put his marker down by saying: 'there is the line. If you cross over it, I will stamp on your foot.'

"Capello does not care whether these guys are worth £10million or £15million a year.

"It is his job he is worried about, making sure he does his job properly and that means keeping the players under control if they should need it.

"This guy seems to have the thing to bring out the real want and desire to win the thing.

"If the discipline is good, and I am pretty certain it is, then that makes a difference."

Cohen, who played all his club football with Fulham as a full-back, recalled Ramsey would know just how to keep players on side.

"We knew exactly where we were with Alf," said Cohen.

"If he had something to say to you, it was in a quiet corner. He would look at you with these eyes that would pierce straight through you. He would tell you in no uncertain terms.

"Once, he put five passports on the beds of Whites Hotel because five players did not turn up to go to bed half an hour after he gave the deadline. They knew something was up.

"At breakfast, Alf said: 'good morning, gentlemen. If I could find five players to take the place of those who were late, they would not be going.'

"You could hear a pin drop.

"That went round football like a bush fire.

"We had one or two players who liked to enjoy the good life, but they never crossed Alf Ramsey more than once.

"Nobody took advantage of Alf Ramsey."

Of course the life of a modern-day Premier League footballer is a million miles, not to mention pounds, away from when Cohen was at the top of his game.

However, Cohen, who turns 70 later this month, feels players, many always in the public eye off the field, could sometimes look at things in perspective.

"Yes, they can go into a bar, but they don't have to drink the place dry," he said.

"You don't have to put yourself in a situation where the photographers run up and 'click, click, click."'

One thing Cohen cannot get his head around is the whole WAGs circus.

"Would you take your wife to work with you? I know I wouldn't," he said.

"We were away a long time. We went to Lilleshall, then went on tour, and then we had the World Cup six or seven weeks - believe me, Nobby Stiles could look attractive after six or seven weeks!"

Cohen added: "It was not easy, but you have to have that discipline. Capello has got it right.

"All he has asked them to do is conduct themselves in the right way on and off the pitch. If they can't do that, then it is simple - don't be here

"This guy has got them thinking: 'You know what you can do on the pitch. Now let's see you do it when it matters."'