England captain John Terry backed Wayne Rooney to make Croatia's wind-up merchants eat their words by firing Fabio Capello's team to the 2010 World Cup.

A victory today would seal the deal for England, but Croatia are still in the hunt for second place and are plotting a repeat of their famous November 2007 win at Wembley.

Croatia boss Slaven Bilic believes the key to success against Capello's side is to mark Rooney closely because the Manchester United star plays such a "wild" game he is liable to explode at any moment.

But Chelsea defender Terry is confident that Rooney is now mature enough to walk away from any confrontations and instead concentrate on doing his damage in front of goal. "It's very important we don't get sucked into anything in individual battles," Terry said.

u00a0"We've got to win but at the same time we have to walk away and be mature about things and don't get sucked into the things.

"Wayne is in great form at the moment. He's scoring a lot of goals as well as giving a lot to the team.