There are several spots where England is quite obviously weak: right back, and goal keeper. However there are a lot of question marks and men that need to prove themselves in that starting XI. We have two quality central defenders, but we don’t seem to have any reliable substitutes for them. We have several promising youngsters donning the England shirt (Milner comes to mind) in midfield, but our number of tried and true is basically down to Frank Lampard and David Beckham at a stretch. Hell, Rooney doesn’t even have a consistent strike partner (Crouch or Defoe?).

This game against Brazil, even though it doesn’t really matter, may crush our World Cup hopes and dreams 7 months before the tournament even begins. Well obviously it won’t literally prove the downfall of our run, but it is definitely showing our many weaknesses. Players get injured in tournaments, playing so many games so close together is hard on the body. Most clubs pitch a fit if they have to play 2 games in 4 days (looking at you Sir Alex). There’s a good chance that we could see many of those players who are sitting on the sidelines now will be right where they are this June. Our little Lions have a lot of growing up to do, because they may just find themselves out on the pitch world’s biggest tournament comes round.

What: England vs Brazil (or Brazil vs England), friendly game of football
When: Saturday November 14th, 2009. 5pm kickoff UK time. 12noon US eastern time.
Where: Khalifa International Stadium, Doha, Qatar
I Don’t Live There! Is it on TV? UK: ITV1 5pm, USA: Fox Soccer Channel 12noon

First question to ask about this bizarrely located game, who’s the home team? Apparently it’s 3,232 miles from London to Dohar, but 7,212 from Brasilia (Brazilian capital) to Dohar. So I’m saying England. Sort of.

Second, who has the stronger squad? Or, more accurately, who has the least depleted squad? England started without Gerrard, James, Walcott, Lennon, Ferdinand, Cole and Heskey. We’ve since lost David Beckham (MLS playoffs), Frank Lampard (thigh injury) and Glen Johnson (mysterious injury). So our only “usual first XI” players from World Cup qualification will be Terry, Barry and Rooney. Uh-oh. Apparently we were even reduced to asking Luke Young to reconsider his international retirement. Wes Brown will play right back, since he’s the only one that can.

Brazil are missing players too, but their squad still includes the likes of Maicon, Dani Alves, Lucio, Kaka, Robinho and Luis Fabiano. In short, I’m a little worried about how we’re going to do.

After the above mentioned withdrawals, our current squad looks like this:

GKs: Rob Green, Ben Foster, Joe Hart;
Defenders: Wes Brown, Wayne Bridge, Stepehen Warnock, John Terry, Joleon Lescott, Matthew Upson, Gary Cahill;
Midfielders: Shawn Wright-Phillips, Ashley Young, James Milner, Tom Huddleston, Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Jermaine Jenas;
Forwards: Wayne Rooney, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Darren Bent.

Not ideal and definitely not even full strength. But maybe a good chance for guys like Ashley Young and James Milner to press their claims.

So… my new favourite starting XI would look something like this:

Green
Brown – Terry(c) – Upson – Bridge
SWP/Milner – Jenas/Carrick – Barry – Young
Rooney
Crouch/Defoe

Defence more or less picks itself. Brown is the only right back, I trust Upson more than Lescott, and Bridge needs a game after his terrible performance vs Ukraine. Wouldn’t be upset if Warnock started at left back instead though.

Out wide, it has to be Young on the left. Hopefully he gets 90 minutes. SWP or Milner at right mid, maybe a half each or so? Central mid is a tough ask. Carrick is obviously senior to Jenas, but Carrick’s not in great form and is maybe a little too similar to Barry. Would be nice to see Huddlestone get a respectable number of minutes, just to see how he copes.

Up front, Rooney is a given. But big man Crouch or fast man Defoe to partner him? Can we combine them both somehow? Who would you pick?

Hopefully we’ll have a LiveBlog/chit-chat here on England WCB, so stop by and join us if you’re LiveBlog inclined.

Capello ignored Fergie and selected as many Man Utd players as he wanted (including Wes Brown, who I’m glad to see back in the squad). But he agreed to Rafa’s request and gave Steven Gerrard the week off.

I thought I’d be angry about the Gerrard thing. Mostly because I wanted to see a full strength England squad take on Brazil. Mostly because that’s the only way we have a chance.

But it makes sense to let Gerrard rest, and not just because it keeps Rafa sweet. The Liverpool captain clearly needs the rest. And a break now has to be good for him in the long run. I still say friendlies are important, but Gerrard’s fitness in June 2010 is infinitely more so.

David James and Ashley Cole have been left out due to fitness worries, and still no callup for Michael Owen (who only played a handful of minutes for Man Utd vs Chelsea on Sunday, despite Dimitar Berbatov being unavailable). Emile Heksey (who I see as massively important to this team) is injured.

Enough about who’s not in the squad. Who is in the squad?

We’ve mentioned Wes Brown. The other notable callups are Villa’s Stephen Warnock (who may have the chance to establish himself as England’s third choice left back). James Milner and Ashley Young are in there, which is always good to see, while Jermain Jenas is back and big Tom Huddlestone gets his first senior callup. Last but not least, Darren Bent finally gets a reward for his Sunderland form. Here’s the squad:

GKs: Foster (Manchester United), Green (West Ham), Hart (Manchester City)
Defenders: Bridge (Manchester City), Brown (Manchester United), Cahill (Bolton), Johnson (Liverpool), Lescott (Manchester City), Terry (Chelsea), Upson (West Ham), Warnock (Aston Villa)
Mids: Barry (Manchester City), Beckham* (Los Angeles Galaxy), Carrick (Manchester United), Huddlestone, Jenas (both Tottenham), Lampard (Chelsea), Milner (Aston Villa), Wright-Phillips (Manchester City), Young (Aston Villa)
Forwards: Bent (Sunderland), Crouch, Defoe (both Tottenham), Rooney (Manchester United).

*withdrawn, MLS playoffs.

Here’s the XI I’d like to see start this game.

Green
Johnson Terry Brown Bridge
Milner Lampard Barry Young
Rooney
Crouch

Any arguments?

UPDATE: After another round of dropouts, the squad now looks like this.

First and foremost, this youngster is quick. Not just regular quick. Theo Walcott quick. More than once I saw him go past Michael Kightly like the Wolves winger was standing still, and as a Wolves fan I can tell you Kightly’s no slouch himself.

I may have mentioned this in an earlier post about Jack Wilshere (update: turns out I didn’t) but am happy to repeat it now: How great would it be if Arsenal started producing England internationals?

The quality of youngsters at the Emirates is arguably better than anywhere in the world right now, so if only one or two English players make it through that youth system and into the Arsenal first team, then we’ll have plenty to smile about.

Wayne Rooney contributed what looked like a good all round performance for Man Utd vs Blackburn on Saturday, featuring some nice link play and a sweet sweet goal which he swept home to make it 2-0 (around 4:10 in the above video).

I saw about 15 minutes of the game live, and there was also a magic little inside-of-the-foot-with-back-to-goal pass that somehow didn’t make the Match of the Day cut.

So why am I gushing about Wayne Rooney? Because I’m thinking about the impact he might make at World Cup 2010.

We haven’t seen the real Wayne Rooney at an international tournament since he lit up Euro 2004 as an 18 year old (which could make a good England Flashback post, assuming I can find some good YouTube footage). After Rooney was injured in the quarterfinal, and Portugal knocked us out on penalties, I couldn’t wait to see the boy back in a major tournament.

But at World Cup 2006, Rooney was basically injured and shouldn’t have been there. Euro 2008 we didn’t make it (less said about that the better). So World Cup 2010 could be billed as the return of (the real) Wayne Rooney to international tournament football, a full six years after Euro 2004. Please no injuries in April or May. Please.

Rio suffered an injury during pre-season and Fergie cites this as one of the reasons Ferdinand hasn’t been himself of late. Ferguson backed him, saying:

“There is no discernible depreciation in his qualities – none for me at all.”

Edwin van der Sar, Manchester United teammate has also come out with a statement of support.

Both van der Sar and Fergie say that everyone goes through a rough patch professionally, and Ferdinand’s recent string of niggles hasn’t helped, but if this streak goes on much longer it may be too late for Ferdinand. He will be celebrating his 31st birthday soon, and while defenders can go on playing at the top level longer than other players, it’s no doubt that Rio will feel the clock ticking.

I really do like Ferdinand as a player, I think his command of the ball and the box is lovely. And I do hope he manages to stagger away from this rough patch with his skills fully in tact. But that said I think the next two or three months are vital for Ferdinand and may determine whether he starts in South Africa or not.

Interesting story in Bild recently, suggesting that Fabio Capello has been asking Stuart Pearce to keep an eye on Werder Bremen’s 23 year old attacking mid/forward Aaron Hunt, who you can see above scoring twice for Werder Bremen (in white) this weekend. The second goal (which tied the game at 2-2) is an absolute cracker of a chest-volley combo.

Hunt was born in Germany to a German father and English mother, which makes him eligible for both nations. He’s played for Germany’s Under-21 team, against England no less, and was accused of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand and Micah Richards during the game, but found innocent by UEFA.

Hunt has heard of England’s interest, but said nein, danke:

“I grew up in Germany and learned to play football here.

“I would of course be flattered by any interest from England, but I have not heard anything about it and it wouldn’t even be an issue for me.

“I only want to play for Germany and am not going to be tempted (to change my mind) either.”

Makes sense to me. Especially as Hunt is said to be on the verge of an international callup for Germany thanks to his recent Werder Bremen form. But nice to see Capello thinking outside of the Premier League and seeing what his options are.

Ferguson doesn’t mention the Brazil game specifcially. But he may as well have. It’s a long old rant, but it’s in its entirety (via The Guardian) below…

Quoth Fergie:

“It’s a coach’s nightmare, especially if you are in the middle of a European campaign and going for cups and titles,” the United manager said. “You have all these fixtures and you have the intrusion of a friendly international game in some unknown country, so that is a definite thorn in everyone’s flesh.

“Unfortunately you can’t do anything about it. It’s always a grey area between coaches of the league teams and the English manager. All the international managers have their jobs to do and we support that, particularly when it comes to the issues of competitive games such as the European Championship or the World Cup. You want them to play in the important international games; it’s the friendly matches that are the problem.

“I don’t think that any [league manager] agrees with them whereas international managers have a situation that they find themselves in. I think that some of them actually could do without the friendly games themselves, but the football associations from every country warn them that sometimes it’s a nice day for them, a nice trip for them, a sunny day, and in some cases it creates good revenue for them. So you can understand it.”

Which was inflammatory enough to draw a response from Fabio Capello today, who said:

“I don’t understand what this is all about.

“Most other countries are playing two games but we are only playing one match and returning the players on Sunday, four days earlier than the other countries.

“We did this out of respect to the players and their clubs at such a busy time in the fixture calendar.”

Maybe he didn’t say this to Ferguson specifically, but it was in response to the complaints about the England vs Brazil game.

It’s true that the FA is profiting from playing in Doha (by about £400,000 if the rumours are correct) but so what? Capello is correct, this is a FIFA international date, and so we’re playing an international. A big one too. I can’t wait to see England take on Brazil, and frankly don’t care if it has any impact on Man Utd’s Champions League campaign or not.

This is a longstanding England problem. Everyone’s behind the team and expecting the best when it’s tournament time, but not so keen on the groundwork that needs to happen to get us ready. People complain, but friendlies are important. It’s the only way to finetune the system, try out new players and new ideas. Sure you can do it in training. But not against a team that’s trying to beat you and in front of a stadium full of fans.

It can’t all be World Cup qualifying games. And true, some of the friendlies are a bit mundane. But not this one. Playing Brazil in the Middle East is anything but mundane and could even give us a good idea of where we stand in the international pecking order. It’s going to be all friendlies between now and the World Cup, probably none of them as glamorous as this. So let’s hope Wayne Rooney et al don’t develop mysterious thigh strains in mid-November, and let’s hope Capello gets to field his full strength team as he prepares for the World Cup, otherwise we can kiss our chances of a successful tournament goodbye.

Milan chief executive, Adriano Galliani, has come out with the wonderfully self contradictory statement:

“It’s practically certain at 100 per cent, the only thing missing is the signatures, but the agreement is complete.”

I know. Something can’t be “practically” certain and be “100 per cent” certain at the same time. Let’s just ignore it for the sake of this post. If this deal goes through, which it probably will, it could prove to be Beckham’s ticket to South Africa.

Capello has made it quite clear that if Beckham doesn’t join a higher quality team, he will not be in the squad. However there was a lot of backlash from American fans when he returned from his loan last time, so I would not have been surprised had he been forced to stay in LA. There were some rumors that he would be coming to the Premiership, but I believe he made the right decision. Serie A and the Premiership are two very different leagues, thats are played at very different speeds. The Premiership is widely praised as the fastest league in the world, while Serie A is much more slow and languid. David Beckham is no spring chicken (he’ll be 35 when the World Cup kicks off), and he wasn’t a fast player to start with. He may have been relegated to the depths of the bench at an English club, but at Milan his style of play fits in perfectly.

I think this is probably Beckham’s last chance at a big international competition (a Euro or World Cup), as he’ll be 37 when the next Euro Cup rolls around. Personally I love Beckham (though I do deplore his hobo beard, pictured above) so I wish him the best of luck with his stay at Milan. I think that Fabio also has a special place in his heart for Becks, and I have a feeling he will be in South Africa.