Today in England was equivalent to the day about 6 months ago when Team Canada Hockey was named for the Olympics. The England FA (football association) named the team that will represent the country at the World Cup in 10 days.
As it was in Canada when the hockey team was named, there is much second guessing about the team that was named. Who was omitted, who was named and who will start on Fabio Capello's team when they take the field against the USA for their first game.
As usual, when a team of this magnitude gets named it is the snubs who were the talk of the back pages. The first name on everyone's list was Theo Walcott. The Arsenal stand-out made the team back in 2006 as the youngest ever player for England at 17. He scored a magical hat trick during the qualification rounds, but lacked form during the Premiership which eventually caused Capello to exclude him from the squad. A very disturbing turn of events for Walcott. He is young enough to make it back from this and contribute in the run up to 2014.
The other big name excluded was Darren Bent. Bent finished 3rd in scoring in the Premiership this season while playing for Sunderland. He was electrifying at times, but the main concern with adding Bent to the squad is that he wouldn't play well with the others up front - namely Wayne Rooney. Could the two co-exist and Bent can be quite temperamental - just look at his twitter feed.
The other omitted players have either been injured and tried to make a comeback in time for the World Cup or youngsters who have shown some promise (Adam Johnson of Man City or Leighton Baines of Everton) and will likely play key roles on the next team.
Anyway you look at it, the Three Lions have lots of pressure on them to perform starting on June 12.
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Go England!!!
ReplyDeleteEngland!!!!! This team goes only as far as its underperforming CB's will carry it. With Capello we could be looking at a potential world champion.
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