Continuity is the key for coaches and players and experience of a big tournament can help Capello

I feel for Fabio Capello. I know how painful it is to be knocked out of a tournament. I haven't got over our European final defeat last year, and I don't think I ever will. The silver medal we received is hanging up in my office, but I refuse to touch it. I don't go in for second best. I still feel angry about it - so near but so far. I hung the medal alongside the under-19s European Championship gold medal to remind myself that it is possible. To keep striving.

There have been a lot of people in the media the past few days calling for Fabio to resign. I think any manager would much prefer to see stability and continuity in the game, and I'm not just saying this because I really like Fabio as a person. Change can sometimes bring with it its own problems.

Personally, I hope Fabio remains England manager. Let's not forget his record in qualifying for the tournament, or the major championship trophies he has won in his coaching career; we certainly cannot doubt his football credentials. The World Cup was his first taste of tournament football, up until now he has been a club manager and it is a very different beast. Managers need the opportunity to learn as much as anyone else.

I've been in this job for the past 11 years now and I'm still learning, every single day, searching for the 1% that will make the difference.

Without a shadow of a doubt every single tournament that I've come through has given me vital experience for the next. In 2005, at the Euros, we were the host nation and we didn't even get out of the group. But that experience fed into the next tournament –the 2007 World Cup – and helped us to reach the quarter-finals. In turn that achievement fed into the Euros last year where we reached the final. The lesson of that chain of performance is continuity.

Unless you are extremely lucky then pretty much the only way that a manager and team will succeed at a tournament is through experience. That's why the Germans always come good. Look at Joachim Löw – he was assistant manager to Jürgen Klinsmann during Germany's 2006 World Cup campaign where they finished third. Löw then took over after Klinsmann left, and went on to coach Germany to the European Championship final in 2008. He's now on his third international tournament with the senior side, so of course he feels at ease managing in the international set up.

The same pattern is reflected in the German women's team. The same coaches have been passing on the baton for the last three decades. Tina Theune-Meyer, who had been assistant since 1983, took over in 1996 and recruited the current national coach, Silvia Neid, who in turn took over as head coach in 2005. That level of sustained continuity has brought trophies – four European titles and two World Cups in just 14 years. It's not rocket science. It's very obvious to me why that system works.

The same principle can be applied to the players. If you want to achieve in international tournament football then make sure everyone involved gets tournament experience. Four of the players in Germany's side that beat England on Sunday won the under-21 European Championship final against England last year. That doesn't surprise me in the slightest. It is the same in their women's game set-up, and it is a system that we have tried to emulate here in England.

I have made it an absolute priority to develop players at youth level to feed into the senior side. Now when I look at the England women I see players who have caps at every age group – and I don't mean the odd game in the youth teams, I mean a substantial number of games. They've all come through the system and when they reach a senior competition it's no longer a big deal, it's just another tournament. Our under-19s have reached three finals in four years, and that talent is starting to manifest itself in the senior side.

It is the same for our coaches. In the women's game we have a mentoring system in place so that, for example, Mo Marley's experience of winning the Euros with the under-19s passes down to other coaches. It's all about producing a conveyor belt of players and managers.

We're all striving to be the best in the world, the men and the women. Let's make sure we have the best possible system in place to get there.