WAYNE Rooney has stressed the importance of England's final two World Cup qualifiers as preparations begin for next summer's tournament in South Africa.

England ensured their qualification with two games to spare by beating Croatia last month.

That means there is now little at stake for Fabio Capello's men in Ukraine on Saturday and against Belarus next week, but striker Rooney sees the fixtures as key stepping stones for the team.

The Manchester United striker told UkraineVEngland.com: "Obviously it's a difficult tournament and to win the World Cup you need to be at your best and obviously you need a bit of luck as well.

"I think we're playing well at the minute, I still think we need to improve if we are going to win the World Cup so that's what we're hoping to do in these games now."

While Rooney can start to look forward to playing in a second World Cup tournament, he has admitted the memories of the last one are still raw.

Rooney was sent off for stamping on Ricardo Carvalho as England were knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Portugal.

But as the post-match furore largely centred on the role of Cristiano Ronaldo in the incident, Rooney accepts he might have got off lightly.

Previous tournaments had seen the likes of David Beckham and Phil Neville castigated and, looking back, Rooney feels his former United team-mate Ronaldo's infamous wink to the bench might have done him a favour.

The 23-year-old said: "I didn't really get any stick. Ronaldo took a lot of it and I was pleased about that.

"I still got it when I played for my club but that is just normal. In that instance, I know I could have taken a lot more."