OK, pay attention at the back, here’s the provisional 30 man England squad:
Goalkeepers: Robert Green (West Ham), Joe Hart (Manchester City), David James (Portsmouth)
Defenders: Leighton Baines (Everton), Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Michael Dawson (Spurs), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Ledley King (Spurs), John Terry (Chelsea), Matt Upson (West Ham), Steven Warnock (Aston Villa)
Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Manchester City), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Tom Huddlestone (Spurs), Adam Johnson (Manchester City), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Aaron Lennon (Spurs), James Millner (Aston Villa), Scott Parker (West Ham), Theo Walcott (Arsenal), Shaun Wright-Phillips (Manchester City)
Strikers: Darren Bent (Sunderland), Peter Crouch (Spurs), Jermain Defoe (Spurs), Emile Heskey (Aston Villa), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)
Before we go any further, the following players who have been in England squads over the past year or so are missing: Gabriel Agbonglahor, Wayne Bridge, Wes Brown, Gary Cahill, Carlton Cole, Stewart Downing, Ben Foster, Jermaine Jenas, Joeleon Lescott, Gary Neville, Paul Robinson, Ryan Shawcross and Ashley Young.
The main surprise is the inclusion of Jamie Carragher (no, not the bloke from Shameless), who hasn’t played for England for three years after falling out with Steve McClaren. Obviously Rio Ferdinand’s fitness and John Terry’s ‘interesting’ form since his misdemeanours entered the public domain mean that we need cover in defence and Carragher’s inclusion makes sense; he’ll battle it out with Michael Dawson and Ledley King, but to be honest Dawson is the best long term prospect we have in central defence and I’ll be amazed if Dawson doesn’t make the final 23.
Dawson and Manchester City midfielder Adam Johnson are the only uncapped players named in the squad; quite a few of names above have been through this before. Interestingly, Capello also tried to talk Paul Scholes out of his self imposed international exile: he was having none of it.
Our next opponents – Mexico – were in action last night, beating Senegal 1-0 at Soldier Field, Chicago (home of Da Bears!): Â the winning goal was scored by Guadalajara’s Alberto Medina.
David Beckham’s injury woes have been documented elsewhere so it’s no surprise that he’s missing: but he’ll be joined by some famous names from our chief rivals: Ronaldinho and Adriano have been left out by Brazil and Francesco Totti (who seems to be single handedly keeping Roma in the race for the Serie A title) won’t be playing for Italy this summer.
Apologies for missing this yesterday – don’t worry Fabio, we’ll be attempting to provide our own player ratings, which will probably appear immediately after each game and may be heavily influenced by one or more of the major breweries.