Capello makes his decision

The past few days has seen a number of provisional and even final squads announced for the World Cup, but today two of the most anticipated provisional squads were revealed. England has delivered their 30 provisional players amidst controversy regarding manager Fabio Capello’s involvement in a bizarre form rating website which sports his name. Italy’s squad was well anticipated as many were wondering whether Lippi would go with the old guard or bring in some fresh faces.

England Provisional Squad:

GK: David James, Joe Hart & Rob Green

No surprise in the goal keeper department, although a number of people will be delighted to see Joe Hart in the England squad. Which goalkeeper will take the number one shirt will probably be determined from the warm-up games, although all three of these keepers are now guaranteed to go to South Africa as long as injury does not set in.

DEF: Leighton Baines, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Michael Dawson, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock

Jamie Carragher’s odd’s on making the squad dropped to 1/25 last night and he is a somewhat surprising call-up considering his determination to stay in international retirement. Although I don’t doubt Carragher’s credentials, this season has been the first time he is starting to show his age a bit, particularly in the FA cup 3rd round replay against Reading where he struggled big time. Dawson will definitely be starting in the warm-up games and will be hopeful his good league form will transfer to the international side. For Stephen Warnock and Leighton Baines, there is a direct battle to be on the plane and become England’s second choice left back (what an opportunity!)

MID: Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Scott Parker, Theo Walcott, Shaun Wright-Phillips

Gareth Barry is in the squad, but news is awaited as to whether or not he will actually go to the tournament, and if he doesn’t then Scott Parker and Tom Huddlestone have an ideal opportunity to get themselves on the plane. There’s a lot of competition for the wide places, and Adam Johnson, who started the season out in the Championship with Middlesbrough, now finds himself with a chance to represent his country on the biggest stage of them all. Joe Cole will also be glad to see his name on the team sheet after the season he has had, but he will be closely watched by Capello to see whether he is capable of showing his old form. Owen Hargreaves misses out and it seems like a sensible option with all fairness, mostly due to the fact that he’s only played 30 seconds of football! Paul Scholes is also not included, and it is most likely that he has once again declined the chance to represent.

FWD: Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney

Sunderland fans have their calls answered, as in form striker Darren Bent is taken into consideration, but his work is far from over, and you’d feel he would have to produce goals in the warm-up games to stand a chance of getting on the plane. Also, surprise surprise! Wayne Rooney is on the team sheet! Who would have seen that coming? The other four strikers are the ones that were expected to go, but if Bent does get the goals, will Capello drop Defoe or take the five strikers in place of a midfielder or defender? Also, Bobby Zamora appears to have mised out, and it will be interesting to see how he performs in Wednesday’s Europa league final. If he smashes in a few goals, what are we to think then?

Italy Provisional Squad (at the time of writing this, it is a strongly rumoured team sheet that has apparently fallen in the hands of Sky Sports Italia):

Lippi suprises some

GK: Gianluigi Buffon, Federico Marchetti, Morgan De Sanctis, Salvatore Sirigu

Gianluigi Bufffon will guard the goal of his country once again, but the two goalkeepers that will join him appears to be up for grabs, and the young Salvatore Sirigu who Buffon has tipped to be his replacement could get a chance to not only represent his country in the World Cup, but also make his debut should Buffon succumb to injury.

DEF: Salvatore Bocchetti, Leonardo Bonucci, Fabio Cannavaro, Mattia Cassani, Giorgio Chiellini, Domenico Criscito, Fabio Grosso, Christian Maggio, Gianluca Zambrotta.

First thoughts – Wow! Look at how many youngsters will be involved in Italy’s defence this year. Quite surprising to see so many players with less than five caps being considered for the World Cup squad, and although the likes of Zambrotta, Grosso and of course Cannavaro remain, there are a number of youngsters who will be able to get invaluable experience. Whether this tactic will back-fire on Lippi remains to be seen, but it is quite brave to call up so many youngsters, what is even more suprising is the fact that most of them don’t play for Italy’s big guns. Watch out for Giorgio Chiellini if you haven’t seen him play before, a solid defender that could make a huge name for himself this summer.

MID: Mauro Camoranesi, Antonio Candreva, Andrea Cossu, Daniele De Rossi, Gennaro Gattuso, Claudio Marchisio, Ricardo Montolivo, Angelo Palombo, Simone Pepe, Andrea Pirlo.

Another mix of new and old, and this could be the last World Cup for Camoranesi, Pirlo and Gattuso. A number of players have missed out such as Ambrosini, Aquilani, Perrotta and Barone and there a more players who have less than five caps in the side. The battle here would appear to be for central midfield places, and although De Rossi and Pirlo are probably certain to be on the plane, the others seem less certain and Lippi will be keen to see how certain players work together in the middle of the park before making a final decision.

FWD: Marco Borriello, Antonio Di Natale, Alberto Gilardino, Vincenzo Iaquinta, Giampaolo Pazzini, Giuseppe Rossi, Fabio Quagliarella.

Di Natale was in much of the same situation that Darren Bent found himself in, and after missing out on the Confederations cup squad, his good goal scoring form has fired the 32 year old back into the Italian fold. Giuseppe Rossi also has been given the nod  after an impressive season in Spain, but the forward berths in the Italian side were certainly the most competitive, and there are a number of players that have missed out. Francesco Totti will not be coming out of international retirement to represent his country, Del Piero’s international time appears to be over, Antonio Cassano remains in exile and Luca Toni’s move to Roma doesn’t appear to have done him many favours in terms of his international hopes. Mario Balotelli also misses out, a decision that was no doubt based on the player’s current problems and drop to the bench.

The Country Will Be Watching

I’ve been watching and reading a few things from America the past few months and it seems that the States is really excited for this up coming world cup. I remember watching the Colbert Report where Colbert was talking to one of the soccer pundits about America’s chances (the name escapes me unfortunately) and everyone seemed really confident that the USA could do it this summer. Then I read a few articles and a lot of American’s truly believe that they can upset England this summer and it just got me thinking about the whole thing and how I can’t see it happening. I hope you will read beyond the title alone to understand what it is like from my own perspective; an Englishman who spends every 3 seconds thinking about football.

I’m not the biggest England fan by any means, my first experience of my national side was in 1996, and to lose to Germany in the semi-final really broke my heart. Ever since then I’ve always thought that there is a little bit of arrogance that has built with English football, a belief that we are the greatest team in the world and always have been, it’s certainly true that a number of our players are over rated (playing FIFA 10 the other day, on their ultimate team add-on, Robert Green is rated 84/100! That’s ridiculous). The media in England are probably the thing I hate most about what they do to our country and the football team. They hound the side and are especially good at getting everyone’s hopes exceptionally high when in hindsight we ultimately realise our squad, although good, cannot match up to some of the others in the world. They pretty much forced Sir Bobby Robson to resign in the early 90′s and I don’t care how focused you can get your team, things like that must play on their mind.

But I do look at this side, and although there is a chance of winning it, I’m still a bit pessimistic. The two stand out players are really Wayne Rooney, who is one of the top three players in the world, and Ashley Cole who is arguably the best left back in the world (Evra is competition though). I know you might be thinking I’m forgetting about the likes of Gerrard and Lampard, but there are a number of players out there such as De Rossi, Xavi, Iniesta and Kaka etc who I think are just that tiny bit better. You put on top of that the fact we’ve been attempting to make Gerrard and Lampard work together in the same team for years to no avail and it’s frustrating for an England fan. John Terry is also having a lot of howlers this season and it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of the team connect with him after he forced Wayne Bridge into international retirement. We have a really good side and when the tournament comes around I’ll turn into just as big an England fan as any, but I think much of the country is in agreement that our hopes rest on Wayne Rooney’s shoulders.

But when I take every thing into account, we realise that England have the perfect manager in charge of the team and someone who has kept us undefeated in qualifying. We will go into the tournament with confidence and England can often breeze through group stages. The one position we would be envious of is goalkeeper. It’s frustrating when we see the likes of Spain, Italy, USA and Germany pumping out so many great goalkeepers and we barely have one. I think most England fans will be happy if David James starts the first game, but his fitness is some concern and if he gets injured we’re in trouble. I think it might be a bit late for Joe Hart to be in the England side for this world cup, much to the fury of England fans in the previous world cup, we found that Theo Walcott was not ready (albeit, Walcott hadn’t played a game for Arsenal at this point. What were you thinking Sven?). The less said about Robert Green – the better.

But pretty much every position, with a fit squad, England are better than the USA. I don’t think any of the American defenders will be able to contain Rooney, and linking up with an Emile Heskey who will provide as ever for the team (if you don’t think Heskey should partner up front then you obvious don’t realise how much he does for the team) it just seems like there’s too much going for England. By no means file this under ‘it’ll be a walkover’, I think USA really will give England a great game and when I say we’ll win I think we will edge it but it won’t be easy for us. USA have a lot of good players coming through and I personally am enjoying a country like America progressively getting better.

Its just England players have a bit more flair and can play at a higher tempo. When I see the USA team, they’re good, but they seem a bit rigid at times but this is something that comes through time. Jozy Altidore is an example of this, he’s the perfect target man and I think he’s as good as Heskey at his job in that respect, but he has a lot of work to do with his feet and sometimes it looks like he has a rush of blood to the head when the ball is actually at his feet. Clint Dempsey and especially Landon Donovan have proved they can play at the high tempos and do have this bit of spice about them that you realise with a lot of the highly established nations where football is the national sport (Brazil, Italy, Spain, England and Germany etc), but each England player will be surrounded by 10 others players where football is their culture. I think the culture aspect of it all is what America lacks, but from what I hear it is certainly getting bigger over there and it will hopefully just click into place.

England are the favourites and in this country we’d be highly disappointed if we lost any of our group games. We expect America to finish 2nd in the groups and join us in the knockout stages. What just gives us confidence is Capello and how much authority he asserts in the team, with him in charge I know we can hopefully have a good tournament. I still feel that USA will give a challenge and there is most certainly the possibility more than any other of our group opponents that they can beat us, but the fully fit England starting line up has been playing too well together lately and although I think we could get seen off by a Spain, Brazil or Germany, the USA should be 3 points for England. USA will come up against a side who’s country are in full belief (which they were in 2002, but not 2006) that they will win this world cup.

David Beckham’s journey continues as recent confirmed reports in Italy suggest that he is on his way back to AC Milan for another loan deal. We have witnessed in the past big players moving from their clubs like Brazilian legend Ronaldo moved from Inter Milan to Real Madrid, Luis Figo from Barcelona to Read Madrid, Andriy Shevchenko from AC Milan to Chelsea, Thierry Henry from Arsenal to Barcelona, recently Kaka from AC Milan to Real Madrid and other big players had to move from one club to another at some stage of their careers. Those players had purpose for the transfers, few wanted to win more trophies, few wanted to face a new challenge, some of the players contract with their clubs expired, some had problem with the management or club fans.

David Beckham’s loan spells at AC Milan are quite different of what we have experienced in the past. David Beckham moved from Real Madrid in 2007 to LA Galaxy of what at that time many believed was not a right decision because Becks was supposed to be in a better shape to play at the highest level and in the Europe as well. David Beckham had a huge impact in United States as many people turn in numbers to watch his signing at the club, those who knew him were delighted and those who didn’t were keen to see the class of the EX-English captain. The ticket sales of Beckham’s shirts were on high, people around the world turn their sight on MLS to some extent, their stadium tickets sales increased dramatically and LA Galaxy experienced something that they didn’t before.

Beckham’s spell at LA Galaxy was a little mixed, he was central to the LA Galaxy plans, it was mix with injuries and poor form as well but what important is that he made a huge difference to the team in terms of its publicity and with their standard of play. Imagine a young player of the team training with becks must have learned a lot with his football skills and about the temperament to have in different situations of the game. LA Galaxy fans have a right to point finger at Beckham because he was unable to deliver what was expected or promised to the club and the league but we should also know clearly that what really was expected? & do players always deliver what is expected from them? If we take example of European player of the year Andriy Shevchenko’s big money arrival at Chelsea, did he deliver what was expected? Did galacticos deliver what was expected from them? And there are many more examples like this if we take a look around. So what I feel appropriate is that Beckham was able to deliver what was expected of him to some extent and it could have been even more if there was not a selection problem at England squad. We all are aware of Fabio Capello man management skills and about his discipline, his judgment of the players & who knows him better than Beckham having worked under him for about a year at Real Madrid when Spanish giants historically came back in the La Liga in the last season in Spain to actually win it.

Selection nightmares left Becks with no choice but to opt for a better club in terms of reputation, a club which will catch the eye of the England chief & there wasn’t any option available to Beckham but to move away from LA Galaxy in order to represent his nation for as long as possible. I think no will one can argue that a person should first of all think about his club than country, if Fulham playmaker Dempsey faces this situation he will certainly leave the club in order to make sure that he represents United States, his country first, and I hold that in highest regards. Beckham loan spell is different from other transfers that we have witnessed in the past because he don’t want to win trophies, he don’t want any new challenge, he don’t have any big issues with the management of the club at LA Galaxy all he wants is the position in the country and contribute in it, I believe that United Kingdom is very fortunate to be blessed with players like David Beckham as he has taken a lot of LA Galaxy fans and critics against him in order to represent his country but I also believe that majority of the LA Galaxy fans also understands and respects his decision so we should all be united to wish him a good spell at AC Milan and hope he can make it to the world cup finals in South Africa 2010.