2010 World Cup: Capello has his starring 11
English coach Fabio Capello finally has finally formulated his starting eleven for the match against the United States of America on Saturday, the 12th of June.
The fans are desperately waiting for the Italian to expose the English goalkeeper for the match. Not more than three goalkeepers including David James, Robert Green or Joe Hart are in contention of a place when it comes to recent performances. On a different note, rumoursin the football pubs suggest that the James, who earlier received the number one shirt from Capello, will get the privilege of being the 11th hour Samaritan.
Skipper Rio Ferdinand has been ruled out of the tournament due to a knee injury which gives the reigns of leadership to Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. His is the next perfect man for the job and as far as critics are concerned, Gerrard was a better choice even before the injury to Ferdinand. Gerrard will have loads of experience from his captaincy with the ‘Reds’ to share with the English team. His club has clashed with some difficult times recently, which is quite similar to ‘The Three Lions’ at the moment.
With fingers crossed, Capello is hoping that no more casualties from his team take place before the Group C opener of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in Rustenburg. He earlier lost his star midfielder David Beckham due to a ruptured Achilles tendon after which a stream of bad news followed. However, the team seems much more stable and ready for the tournament.
Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger has stated this will be the last chance that the ‘Golden Generation’ of English footballers will play together to win a World Cup title. With an impressive line for Game 1, Capello told the media that his men were ready for the challenge and that he had finalized his starting stars for good.
He stated, “Yes, I’ve decided, I know. I know the 11 that will play Saturday and I hope the next two days, during the training, all the players will be fit”.
Capello told he understood that fans anticipated a lot from him and his men, but they weren’t going to back down and will try to put in their best performance for the cause. Even then, Capello has had his moments, especially when he recently lost his calm at reporters at the English training site at Royal Bafokeng World Cup base.
He defended himself at the incident by explaining, “I’m relaxed, I can understand the pressure because in every moment we walk around you can see the security, the journalists, you can see when you move to golf, to safari, you need to police a lot of this”.
He also added that this was a very important moment in England’s history and he wasn’t going to let some irresponsible personnel ruin the show. He said that he had made England a better team than before under his management. Capello clarified his opinion by saying that the improvement has also increased the quality and maturity of the players. Since Capello’s first match with ‘The Three Lions’ against Switzerland in February 2008, the team has won 18 out of the 24 matches managed by him.
He conceitedly stated, “Yes, they’ve improved a lot. We found a spirit, different systems to play during the game, a lot of players know me better, but I think everything is different”.
It may be biased but his prediction for the tournaments best player was Wayne Rooney. The ace striker received a yellow card for losing his temper in England’s last friendly against the Platinum Stars. Rooney lost his cool and shouted ‘f**k you’ at the referee who had failed to notice a foul committed against him. Later though, the 24-year-old forward apologized to the referee and offered his shirt to close the case.
England’s’ captain and manager have warned Rooney against his overflowing temper and even Americas’ coach Bob Bradley has affirmed that his team will not try to take advantage of Rooney by aggravating his low standard of irritability.
Capello hopefully commented on Rooney, “He is in a good moment, he trains very well and he scores goals during training, which is important for him. I think he will play a fantastic World Cup”.
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