Category Archives: World Cup 2010

A Big Day Around The World

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By the end of the weekend, we’ll probably have a much better idea of who will joining the countries who have already qualified for South Africa, who will be in the play offs and which (if any) of the major footballing powers will be watching England on TV. Here’s a quick guide to the various scenarios that will be played out around the world today:

EUROPE

Group 1: wide open. Denmark have a three point lead at the time of writing this, but they play second place Sweden this evening; Portugal
play Hungary so this situation is very fluid could all change by tomorrow morning.

Group 2: See Group 1. Leaders Switzerland have an easy looking game in Luxembourg, but the key game today is probably Greece v Latvia. If that finishes in a draw and Israel beat bottom place Moldova then there’s a three way tie for second place going into Wednesday’s games.

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Group 3: Slovakia have a five point lead, if they draw today they go through but their game is against second place Slovenia, who will be desperate to hang on for a point. Northern Ireland don’t have
a game today but will be keeping a close eye on the Czech Republic v Poland game.

Group 4: either Germany or Russia, they play each other today in Moscow. In an ideal world this one would be the one I’d be watching.

Group 5: Spain are already through, so this is a race for second between Bosnia & Turkey. Bosnia – away in Estonia –  have a four point advantage going into the last two games; Turkey have a tricky looking game in Belgium.

Group 6: Croatia look likely to go to the Play offs as Ukraine must beat England to stand any chance of coming second

Group 7: Serbia are guaranteed a play off place and will win the group if they beat Romania; France could still theoretically win the group,
they’ve got the Faroe Islands this evening in one of those games that France will probably win 1-0 with a goal in the tenth minute of injury time!

Group 8: Italy are already guaranteed a play off place, so Ireland need a
win to stand any chance of autoqualification. If Ireland lose in Dublin and Bulgaria beat Cyprusthen the battle for second place would go to Wednesday night. Breaking news yesterday was Fabio Cannavaro failing a drugs test having taken some kind of cortisone shot for a bee sting; he’s travelled to Dublin with the Italian squad but won’t be allowed to play tonight.

SOUTH AMERICA

Two automatic places and a play off place left. Chile and Ecuador are currently in the automatic places with Argentina in the play off spot. That’s the simple part: Chile should be able to tie up one of the automatic places although they may have to wait until next week (they play
in Colombia this evening), but there are only three points difference between Ecuador (currently fourth) and Colombia (currently eighth), which means that the Colombia/Chile and Ecuador/Uruguay games are likely to have a bigger impact on the remaining automatic places than Argentina v Peru, which is a game that Argentina must (and probably will) win.

Outside Europe and South America…

The Ivory Coast can qualify with a win in Malawi …the first leg of Bahrain/New Zealand qualifier takes place today…if El Salvador beat Mexico tonight and the United States win in Honduras tomorrow morning, the USA will qualify.

In case you’re having trouble keeping track of the important stuff, here’s the timeline we’ll be following so we can attempt (and ‘attempt’ is a very important concept!) to bring you updates on Twitter – all times GMT:

13:00 Malawi v Ivory Coast
15:45 Switzerland v Luxembourg
16:00 Russia v Germany
17:00 Estonia v Bosnia & Herzegovina
17:15 Ukraine v England
18:00 Bulgaria v Cyprus
19:00 Denmark v Sweden
19:30 Serbia v Romania
19:45 Belgium v Turkey
20:00 Israel v Moldova, France v Faroe Islands, Ireland v Italy
20:45 Portugal v Hungary
23:00 Colombia v Chile, Ecuador v Uruguay, Argentina v Brazil, El Salvador v Mexico

It’s a shame that not everyone will be able to watch our game today, but it’s a chance to appreciate our early qualification, to enjoy an exciting day of international football and to look forward to the prospect of South Africa 2010.

Evening All!

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Firstly, apologies that we’ve missed a couple of weeks on the Premiership front due to obligations elsewhere but as England have their last qualifying games for the 2010 World Cup coming up and it would be missing the point of the entire blog for to ignore them, we’re back for a two part preview of the qualifiers that are taking place all over the world over the next week or so.

Our squad for the games v Ukraine and Belarus and was announced after the last round of Premiership games and – as widely expected – some of the so-called ‘fringe’ players were called up. Rather than just posting a list, we’ll go through the changes position by position.

Robert Green retains his place amongst the keepers, but is joined by David James of Portsmouth and Manchester City’s Joe Hart, who is currently on loan at Birmingham City. Paul Robinson withdrew from the squad with a hip injury, but for want of a better expression, Ben Foster of Manchester United has been dropped. His form has been pretty erratic this season to say the least.

Better news for another United player as Rio Ferdinand has returned to the squad after injury but Joleon Lescott was forced to withdraw with a hip injury and Bolton’s Gary Cahill has been called up once again. We’re not in the business of trying to second guess Fabio Capello here, but it would be a really good idea to give Cahill an opportunity in either or both of the forthcoming games.

In midfield Ashley Young and Theo Walcott have not been selected and up front Gabriel Agbonglahor of Aston Villa replaces Jermain Defoe, who is currently suffering from what sounds like a really painful hand injury. We’ll try to bring you the starting line up when it’s announced.

There are also a couple of bits of controversy to report on, one short term and rather annoying, the one long term and potentially more damaging.

Actually watching the game against Ukraine on Saturday might be problematic as it’s being offered on a subscription basis. From what we’ve read and heard this issue was caused by the collapse of Setanta earlier this year – as it’s an away game, the broadcasting rights belong to the host nation and so any decision regarding those rights is solely that of the Ukrainian FA. On the one hand, it’s a massive inconvenience for England fans and the FA ought to do everything in their power to prevent this situation from happening again, but on the other hand over the past couple of years it’s been possible to watch both baseball and American football on the internet. With the advent of Sky Player, Sky Sports is now available on the web; without wanting to sound like we’re encouraging anyone to give more cash to Rupert Murdoch, live sport online is definitely the way forward, although we think it’s better as an alternative – rather than the only – option. We’re currently unaware of any plans to stream games next year, but it’s something that we’ll investigate.

Lastly, CONCACAF president Austin ‘Jack’ Warner decided to make some less than positive comments about the 2018 bid to bring the World Cup Finals to England; to be honest…well, let’s leave it at that. It goes without saying that we support the bid and that if the real Jack Warner (the one who played PC George Dixon in the classic BBC police drama ‘Dixon Of Dock Green’) was still alive, we’re pretty sure he would support it as well.

Next post will either be tomorrow or early Saturday as we’ll outline some of the scenarios facing some of our traditional international rivals, in particular what may turn out to be the final days of one Diego Armando Maradona as manager of Argentina…

Thanks for reading!

Quick Round Up For This Weekend

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The list of confirmed qualifiers for next year is as follows:

Australia, Brazil, England, Ghana, Holland, Japan, North Korea, Paraguay, South Korea and Spain. Possibly the only surprise there is North Korea (making their second appearance in the finals) but all of these countries have qualified before. The play off situation is still wide open so we’ll take a look at that nearer the time; the other story that we’re monitoring is when (rather than if) Diego Maradona and Argentina part company. The last time Argentina failed to qualify was in 1970 but there’s a real chance they may be missing next year.

Back to the Premiership this weekend for all but one of the England squad: game of the day has to be Manchester United v Spurs (ESPN 5:15pm GMT) as it’s second v third and should feature a lot of England players. Arsenal v Manchester City should also be worth keeping an eye on.

Clive Tyledesley was on form on Wednesday, wasn’t he? Croatia are our ‘skeleton in blue’ (perhaps not any more), he mentioned France but obviously hadn’t been fed the information that not only were they losing but their goalkeeper had been sent off, Steven Gerrard is only a inch and a half taller than Dario Srna and Croatia is an old country (it became a kingdom in 924) but after union with Hungary in 1102 it eventually became part of the Hapsburg Empire and only became truly independent again in 1991.

Finally, did anyone else notice the pitchside advert informing us that beer is available in pubs? Thank goodness for that…I’d been wondering where I could get some for next year. Imagine if you could watch football in pubs, that’d be great!

Enjoy the weekend.

England v Croatia Preview

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Brazil qualified at the weekend thanks to a 3-1 win in Argentina, who
are now fourth in the South American group, five points behind Chile and Paraguay and only two points in front of Colombia and Ecuador. If Ecuador win in Bolivia this evening or Colombia win in Uruguay and Argentina fail to pick up a point in Paraguay early on Thursday morning then either or
possibly both of them latter could leapfrog Diego’s boys. Even if Argentina manage to qualify there’s no guarantee that Maradona will be the coach, although I suppose it might be to our advantage if they did and he was!

It’s also still very tight in Central America, where Honduras, the USA,
Mexico and Costa Rica are potential qualifiers – the big game early tomorrow morning British time is when group leaders Honduras travel to Mexico, but the USA could take pole position if they beat Trinidad & Tobago.

Back to Europe and both Spain and ourselves can qualify this evening, although the reigning European Champions may need another game even if they beat Estonia; if Bosnia-Herzegovina beat Turkey they can still mathematically overtake Spain to win the group, although that’s a long shot at best and would need the type of collapse in form the Spanish normally experience once they qualify for a tournament.

So to our game. The mind games (or at least the attempted mind games) started a couple of weeks ago when Luka Modric broke his leg (shades of Eduardo); on Monday Slaven Bilic described the England team as missing ‘Englishness’, which in some ways is actually a backhanded compliment, although he may have meant Brylcreemed hair, pre-match fry ups, injections of monkey glands and the traditional half time fag with a pint of stout with a raw egg chaser.  I’m sure that if they discovered that the Austrian ref who sent off Spurs’ Vedran Corluka on Saturday had an English aunt that would have been brought up as proof of some kind of conspiracy theory…although Herr Plautz does have his own website: www.konradplautz.com

Anyway, we’ve got a mixed record against the Croats – they’ve won two of the last three meetings – and there hasn’t been a draw since the first time we played them, back in April 1996. Their away form is very impressive – their last defeat was a 0-2 reverse in Macedonia in a Euro 2008 qualifier in November 2007 and they’re currently on a ten game undefeated away run.

Six of the team that started against us when we won 4-1 last September played in the 1-0 win against Belarus on Saturday: Simunic, Srna, Pranjic, Rakitic (who scored the winning goal) and Olic. Additionally Pokrivac, Petric and Mandzukic (who scored the Croatian consulation goal in last year’s game) were all on the bench. There are quite are few familiar names there: Kranjcar, Eduardo and Klasnic are all currently plying their trade in England and if Modric had been fit and Corluka hadn’t been suspended then
the majority of the potential starting XI would have been Premiership regulars.

I would imagine that the England line up will be similar to the one  on Saturday, although Fabio Capello may make some minor tweaks to the formation simply because Modric and Corluka are missing – we may be a bit more adventurous through the midfield for example – and because Croatia need the points more than we do. Bilic is an adept enough tactician to be able to pose England problems without Modric (packing the midfield and trying to pick off Glen Johnson might work) but to some extent Croatia without Modric is like England without Wayne Rooney: dangerous but not quite the same threat.

One thing will be obvious though. If we qualify, this is the type of game England need to be prepared for next summer: tough opposition used to playing Premiership players with a capable coach with experience of and respect for British football. Not to mention increased fan expectations, which will go through the roof once qualification is ensured.

ITV and Radio 5 will be covering the game and as we’ll be watching it there’ll probably be some garbled nonsense on twitter or posted here at half time and (depending on the result) either a period of mournful silence or lots of over excited capital letters with far too many exclamation marks when it’s over.

Difficult not to be excited though, isn’t it? Now stop reading this and get on with your work.

Squad Announced For Slovenia/Croatia game

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The England squad for the friendly at the weekend against Slovenia and the penultimate home qualifier versus Croatia was announced on Sunday night. The starting eleven will probably look similar to the one that drew with Holland at the start of August with Wes Brown replacing the injured Rio Ferdinand (thigh strain).  Aaron Lennon and Peter Crouch (now both of Spurs after the latter moved from Portsmouth) were the only notable additions while neither Theo Walcott and – perhaps less surprisingly -  Michael Owen were called up. Walcott’s absence means that Arsenal do not have a single player in the current England squad: Joleon Lescott’s rather acrimonious transfer from Everton to Manchester City means that City now have four players involved for the forthcoming games.

Apart from Rio there are no significant injury worries: the same can’t be said for the Croats, who lost Spurs’ Luka Modric for at least six weeks when he broke his leg at the weekend. It’s hard not to have mixed feeling about this: on the one hand Modric’s absense might make our task easier but on the other his undoubted ability might have made the game more exciting and unpredictable.

The current lead in Group 6 might well be cut to four points on Saturday as Croatia have a qualifier on Saturday against Belarus in Zagreb (7:30 GMT, apparently no plans to show it on TV); earlier that afternoon Andorra travel to Ukraine. More to come about those games and the rest weekend’s qualifiers later this week.

In terms of the squad’s performance in Premiership form so far, the situation is very encouraging. Fourteen of the 24 players called up by Fabio Cappello come from the current top four clubs at the time of writing and there have been 18 goals throughout the squad, with Jermain Defoe and Wayne Rooney having scored four each. Surprisingly, defenders currently lead the midfielders by four goals to three, largely due to Glen Johnson’s pair of goals for Liverpool.

11 of the 14 Premiership assists from the England squad have come from the midfield with Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Aaron Lennon contributing two each.

Discipline has been reasonably good so far, although both Wayne Rooney
and Ashley Young have both picked up two yellow cards in the Prem this season. However, top of the naughty list is a Mr David Robert Joseph
Beckham of LA Galaxy, who received a straight red card v Seattle on 16th August but scored the winner against Chivas at the weekend: coming so soon after the well reported incidents with the Galaxy fans, this might be a situation that needs to be monitored.

Full squad:

Goalkeepers: Foster (Manchester United), Green (West Ham), Robinson (Blackburn)

Defenders: Johnson (Liverpool), Brown (Manchester United), Upson (West Ham), Terry (Chelsea, capt), Lescott (Manchester City), A Cole (Chelsea), Bridge (Manchester City)

Midfielders: Wright-Phillips (Manchester City), Lennon (Spurs), Beckham (Los Angeles Galaxy), Barry (Manchester City), Lampard (Chelsea), Carrick (Manchester United), Gerrard (Liverpool), A Young (Aston Villa), Milner (Aston Villa)

Strikers:Rooney (Manchester United), Heskey (Aston Villa), Defoe (Spurs), C Cole (West Ham), Crouch (Spurs).

Andorra Preview

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Well Saturday couldn’t have gone any better, could it! A four goal win away from home, six wins out of six, our nearest rivals drawing and a seven point lead going into a home game against the bottom team in the group.

Not the time to get complacent though, even though the facts are overwhelming: Andorra have only ever picked up a point away from home in the World Cup qualifiers (against Macedonia in 2005) and have never won an away game. They scored against Belarus on Saturday, defender Ildefons Lima notched in the last minute but by that time the Belarussians had scored five. Lima – Andorra’s all time leading scorer – plays for AS Triestina in Italy’s Serie B whereas the rest of the Andorran squad play for minor Spanish clubs or in the eight team Andorran league.

On the other hand, we ‘ve only lost two home World Cup qualifiers since 1997 (Italy and Germany) and haven’t been beaten at home since Croatia knocked us out of Euro 2008. Not much to report on the England team today, although it’s worth keeping an eye on whether Theo Walcott will play or not seeing as though he’s supposed to be playing for the under 21s later this week (and apparently if Arsene Wenger had his way he wouldn’t even be playing for them) and that Beckham, Johnson and Heskey would all miss the Croatia game if they were booked tomorrow night.

We’re going to try something a bit different tomorrow night: a commentary on twitter – if you want to follow it follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/11lions . Can’t guarantee what time coverage will start and as I’ll be watching the British Lions latest tour game, I’ve got a ‘Big Brother’ issue with my other half and if England score an early goal it might turn into a discussion about ITVs coverage

Couple of non-football notes to finish on: there’s a tube strike on London Underground tomorrow and having been up to Wembley three times since it reopened I can only begin to imagine how much chaos that might cause. There have been various reports this evening that Setanta is facing administration – which raises the question of which channel might carry England away games if/when Sentanta goes down the tubes…sorry, couldn’t resist that one.

Enjoy the game!

England 2, Ukraine 1: as it happened.

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As the title says, ‘as it happened’ rather than live so this post is more of a re-cap of last night. We’re going to try to live blog some of the games leading up to the World Cup Finals, but as an exercise in live blogging it really was worthwhile.

Due to a Sky Box issue with my nearest and dearest, I watched the game on delay via ITV.com but I’d advise anyone trying that to make sure that you leave plenty of time at the start of the game because I missed about 30 seconds while watching an IBM ad.

So here’s the almost live version of last night’s events. I’ve been through the comments and spellchecked them: my football shorthand is as follows:

CRN: Corner
D: The…errrr…D on the edge of the penalty box.
ENG/ENGL: England
FK: Free kick
GLK or GK: Goalkeeper
HHH: aka Paul Michael Levesque, professional wrestler from WWE (see below)
HT: half time
INT: intercepted
IT: injury time
L: left
LHS: left hand side
M2M: Marked man to man
MIA: Missing in action
MOM: Man of the match
SWP: Shaun Wright-Phillips
UKR: Ukraine
R: Right
WP: Well played
WWE: World Wrestling Entertainment

5m: not much in it right now. Both sides still checking each other out.

6:58 Rooney just wide with an overhead kick, nice effort.

9:54 Barry gets a yellow, literally seconds after I thought he should be careful.

10:17 Valiyaiev shoots wide left. England beginning to slowly get on top.

12:00 Nice cross from Aaron Lennon. England definitely on top right now.

13:28 Rooney brought dwn by Mykhalyk, who gets a card. FK to the left of the D. Gerrard misses just to the left. Good effort.

15:25 Rooney near splits the UKR defence, Gerrard only GLK to beat, but pass INT.

19:43 England corner, Lampard (R), UKR have it under control until poor play by Tymoschuk gives it away: ball played into area but Rooney is offside.

Tight game, interesting as both teams are being patient. This looks like a typical England first round finals game.

22:25 Nice break by UKR but cross is overhit and James takes it.

24:05 Lampard CRN R, UKR break from it. UKR maybe a little over elaborate when attacking.

25:07 Goalmouth scramble, decent chance for England but nothing comes of it

25:37 UKR attack and Voronin – who looks like HHH from WWE – is injured, but not really Terry’s fault. James a little bit MIA there.

28:15 Nice header from Rooney, corner ENG (L), Crouch GOAL ENGLAND. Oh no it’s the Robot. Knock down from John Terry.

31:08 Aliev FK, James gathers. Slow mo shows that Barry was holding Milevskiy…poss pen. Barry needs to be vigilant. Who’s on the bench?

(Should Clive Tyldesley be talking over the national anthem when the England supporters are singing it?)

35:05 Gorgeous diagonal ball (l to r) from Rooney to Lennon,
Lennon centres and Rooney blazes over. Crouch got the goal, but Rooney is 1st half MOM.

36:30 James muffs a long range shot from Tymoshuck, luckily no UKR in the immediate area.

37:45 James clears the ball out for a UKR throw in.

39:32 UKR FK, blocked, Tymoschuk blasts over the bar.

41:00 Gerrard gives the ball away, but danger is averted. Obviously still some nerves, but England look relatviely comfortable.

43:17 Snapshot from Gerrard after some nice approach work, Rooney in the middle of it again.

44;00 David Pleat notices Rooney is M2M by Slysur

44:57 England corner (R), 1m IT, Crouch header cleared off line by Yarmash.

HT England 1-0 Ukraine. About right.

45:00 and we’re off.

46:30 Rooney starts getting a bit physical. Shevchenko warming up, but so what. Far too early for a sub.

47:45 Cole gives the ball away. Too much of this. Rooney snapshot, nice try. At the moment it’s wormkanlike ten plus Rooney.

49:28 Voronin offside from Timoshuk ball.

50:10 England nice approach work but nothing comes of it. Ooh look, it’s David Beckham.

(New shirt is growing on me despite initial verdict that it looks like a netball shirt from the 70s.)

(UKR not a bad team, we’re better, if they had a Rooney it might be different.)

(Pizza’s here but I’ll keep going)

54:29 Voronin off, Shevchenko on. Perhaps Mikhailichenko read my comment about Ukraine needing a Rooney.

57:09 Lennon for Sir David Beckham OBE, UKR goalie Pyatov injured by Mykhalyk rather than Lurch…sorry, Crouch.

(Beckham’s knighthood will be in King Charles’ accession honours list)

60:30 Nazarenko on for Valiyaev

61:40 FK ENG, RH D, Here’s Beckham…close, but no cigar.

63:45 Slysur s/be booked for foul on Barry

64:25 Rooney needs to calm down after going through Olexander Aliev.

(Why are the no updates from the other games featuring British teams?)

(Poland have beaten San Marino 10-0)

72:00 Glen Johnson booked. Not much going on.

73:35 GOAL UKR SCHEVCHENKO, FK from right bounces
around in the area, not properly dealt with, Shevchenko wellied it, James no chance. 1-1.

76:00 ENG crn L (Beckham), nothing comes of it.

Just had a text from another ENGL fan:

‘We looked lazy 15 mins before that goal’

78:15 SWP about to come on for Crouch.

79m Thanks for the updates Clive, bit late aren’t they.
Go to xscores.com for all your latest scores.

80:45 Here’s the curse: THIS IS GOING TO BE A DRAW.

82:30 FK ENG, Beckham L, nothing…

(Why was Beckham bought on? Where’s Gerrard been in terms of attacking?)

84:35 FK ENG GOAL ENGLAND, Beckham FK into LHS box,
Gerrard knock down to Terry who scooped it in. Well there’s my answer! And the curse has been broken again.

86:40 Beckham earns silly yellow card

87m Jagielka for Ferdinand, UKR also make a sub but ITV don’t tell us who it is (Kalinichenko for Slysur)

(N Ireland have won, R Ireland drew with a late Robbie Keane goal and Wales have done what Wales normally do. Scotland are about to win.)

89:33 John Terry announced MOM. Probably right, although if Rooney had stayed in the game he would have won it.

(Where’s the Injury Time clock ITV?)

(Scotland have beaten Iceland.)

91:00 Snapshot from Lampard. Argentina are losing 4-1 to Bolivia, WP Diego.

And that’s it for tonight, England probably shaded it but Capello needs to tell them that they’ve got to be a bit better than that.

So what did we learn yesterday? A draw would have been a disappointing result as England were the better team but at times the team seemed to revolve around Wayne Rooney and when he was marked out of the game the lack of creativity was noticeable. In order to introduce some flair and imagination, Capello replaced Lennon with Beckham but that didn’t work as well as it could have and there were a few occasions where the first touch was lacking or the ball was given away.

Having said that, a win is a win, we’re five points ahead of Croatia and Fabio Capello is a better manager than Diego Maradona and Sven Goran Eriksson…who was sacked by Mexico today.

England 4 Slovakia 0 England Strikers -3

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It was a comfortable win in the end England beat Slovakia 4-0 last night in a friendly that was tainted by an injury fest as 3 strikers limped off with various problems leaving Rooney as the only fit striker.

Emile Heskey, Peter Crouch and Carlton Cole are unlikely for the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine on Wednesday after a series of mishaps left Wayne Rooney as the only fully-fit striker in the squad.

Emile set things up with a goal after 7 minutes, turning in a goal from Stevie Gerrard’s cross but had to leave the field with an Achilles problem. Rooney headed in a Beckham cross after 20 minutes and Frank Lampard hit home on the 82nd minute. The win was sealed in the 90th when Rooney finished with a neat flighted close ranger from Lampard’s excellent low-swung cross from the left.

Capello is now looking at calling up Darren Bent to face the Ukraine on Wednesday after a major doubt over Heskey. Capello has ruled out calling up either Michael Owen or Kevin Davies, while Gabriel Agbonlahor pulled out of Friday’s Under-21 international against Norway with a hamstring injury.

World Cup Qualifier England v Ukraine

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England resume their world cup qualifying campaign on April 1st against Ukraine in brand new shirts. Apart from a wild guess that the new home shirt will be mostly white and the change shirt will be mostly red, that’s a topic for another day, so let’s take a quick look at the situation in Group Six.

With a five point lead over both Croatia (who we’ve already beaten) and Ukraine (in third at present having only played three games), there’s a strong possibility England could be the first European team to qualify for South Africa 2010 and despite the recent defeat in Spain I can’t see any reason to disagree. Yet it’s always worth remembering that there are no medals for being the first to qualify

We’ve got a good record against Ukraine (we’ve won both previous games without conceding a goal but we haven’t played them for almost five years), but having said that, they’re currently on a seven game unbeaten run, they’re pretty tight defensively and they’ve got plenty of decent players – some of whom you may have heard of.

The England squad named for this weekend’s friendly against Slovakia and the qualifier next week contained a couple of mild surprises, one of which seems to have backfired. The only new name in the squad is Leighton Banes of Everton, who I would imagine is seen as a potential squad player for next summer; although there’s no doubt that Ledley King is an international quality player he has a debilitating injury that means he can’t train normally from game to game and it’s not totally clear why Fabio Capello bought him into the squad. On Tuesday afternoon it was announced that King had left camp and was considering his international future, which would be a real shame.

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England v Slovakia, Saturday March 28th 4pm GMT on Setanta Sports 1
England v Ukraine, Wednesday April 1st 8pm GMT on ITV1