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Posts Tagged ‘Argentina’

The improvements wrought by Fabio Capello may not be sufficient to overcome the game’s top two superpowers

For England Spain and Brazil are the Scylla and Charybdis of this World Cup. To believe the sick man of Europe can finally put 1966 in a time capsule you have to believe the improvements wrought by Fabio Capello are sufficient to overcome the game’s top two superpowers.

Last week England again reversed Sven-Goran Eriksson’s mantra of first half good, second half not so good, to beat the best team in Africa. That just leaves the top sides in Europe and South America, who have inflicted hurt on Capello’s men in friendly matches. Spain were 2-0 winners in February last year and Brazil prevailed 1-0 in Doha in November, a game that prompted pundits to say England’s back-up boys were not good enough, in contrast to Wednesday’s 3-1 victory over Egypt, after which everyone claimed the bench was bursting with match-winning talent.

We are close to the stage in World Cup build-ups where an amnesiac population start hectoring the players and coach to say yes, strike me dead if England don’t go there and win it this time. Eriksson started out not wanting to go along with this premature triumphalism but succumbed in the end, lobbing the punters the sardine they wanted: “I think we will win it, of course.”

Just as assessments of individual talent are weakened by an unwillingness to consider the quality of the opposition – Tommy Hotshot was a one-man tornado against Stoke but anonymous against Barcelona, strangely – so any appraisal of England’s prospects in South Africa must start with an acknowledgment of how hard Spain and Brazil will be to shift.

Nor is it only those two fine teams but the five others currently ranked higher than Capello’s: Holland, Italy (the world champions), Germany, Portugal and France. Not forgetting Argentina, who are managed by the self-detonating Diego Maradona but beat Germany in Munich in midweek. Spain and Brazil, though, are the Kauto Star of this summer’s tournament. Realistically England jump off in the Gold Cup knowing there’s nothing in the form book to say they should beat silky Spain or a Brazil XI who have dumped big-name narcissism in favour of industry and a lethal counterattacking style.

Spain’s 2-0 win over France last week was their first on Gallic soil since 1968 and extended an already astounding run to 42 wins in 45 outings. Their only defeat in that time was to America at the Confederations Cup. Here our racing experts toss their trilbys. If the US can beat Spain, and England beat the US, who are in their World Cup qualifying group, then surely the form line says …

No it doesn’t. In Spain’s starting line-up in Paris: Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol, Xabi Alonso, David Villa, Cesc Fábregas, Andrés Iniesta, David Silva. Villa scored his 36th international goal in 55 appearances. In nets Casillas collected his 102nd cap, Xavi Hernández, Pepe Reina, Fernando Torres and Marcos Senna warmed the bench before trotting on. Imagine having Casillas and Reina to choose from in goal. Capello, meanwhile, is sweating over whether David James should be replaced by Robert Green.

They say Brazil have “problems”. But these seem entirely political, as they often are with the five-times World Cup winners. The dilettante Ronaldinho has woken up under Leonardo’s management at Milan, so now Dunga is under pressure to restore the slimmed-down shimmy-star. The coach, though, has his core of humble patriots and his pattern of play, which is to absorb attacks with the help of two screening midfielders (Gilberto Silva and Felipe Melo), then dispatch overlapping full-backs on their merry way while Kaká probes in the No10 position and Luís Fabiano scores the goals at centre-forward.

England’s strengths and weaknesses are a whole other seminar. They cannot be examined in isolation, though, because the road to the final runs through countries demonstrably better equipped to win this World Cup and because England display specific historical failings that Capello will need to cure if they are to play the same possession game as the nations who have won World Cups since 1966.

The bad news is that this requires a profound cultural shift, even if most of Capello’s starting XI are Champions League regulars. Gary Neville, who has played at five international tournaments, and is interviewed on pages 10-11, confirmed this theory while discounting the argument that England could be sunk without a Gilberto or a Melo. Or an Owen Hargreaves.

“I’ve always found in the World Cup that we can burn ourselves out because we’re playing every four days and we’re all running round like mad men when we need people to control the ball,” Neville said. “Carrick and Gerrard and Lampard and Barry – people who’ve played at clubs who control the tempo of the game – are a better bet than putting a destroyer in there.”

Capello has accentuated England’s virtues and concealed their flaws. His management will bestow on a sprinkling of world-class players their best hope since France 98 of putting 1966 in a box with 1066 and all that. But let’s see them sail through the Strait of Messina.

Administrators behaving like messiahs

The age of the celebrity administrator is here. It may be a trick of the memory but the people sent in to sort out ruined football clubs used to be like civil servants, seen but not heard. These days they behave like messiahs, sitting beside newly appointed managers at press conferences and promising to “save” the patient from extinction.

This thought occurred when Neil Warnock, who fled Crystal Palace for Queens Park Rangers, said of Brendan Guilfoyle of the P & A Partnership: “Another blow was when I was told by the administrator’s agent that I could bring in players if I got the squad down to 19.” They have agents now? Guilfoyle sat next to Paul Hart when he was unveiled as Warnock’s successor.

Down at Portsmouth, meanwhile, another insolvency specialist, Andrew Andronikou, is seldom off the television, despite Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs questioning the validity of his appointment and a high court judge saying there was “a shadow” over his nomination.

“I promise we will save your club and take you forward,” Andronikou told Pompey’s supporters. This is not the language of accountancy and cost-cutting, but then football has this narcotic effect. It makes balance-sheet jugglers think they are gods.

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WE CAN WIN THIS. WE CAN WIN THIS. WE CAN WIN THIS. WE CAN WIN THIS

Despite being too hep-cat daddy-o cool and down with the kids to have ever attended a latter-day Rolling Stones gig, the Fiver couldn’t help but think that England’s friendly win against Egypt last night was just like one. What with Mick Jagger being in his late 90s, the geriatric Stones front-man famously reserves his most frenetic bursts of energy for encores, a tactic that enables him to send punters home thinking he’s a tremendously tireless and animated performer, having forgotten the preceding 60 minutes delivered from underneath the tartan rug that keeps the draught off his knees when he’s rolling around stage in his bath-chair.

In much the same way, England’s impressive performance in the final 30 minutes of last night’s victory sent their fans and media cheerleaders home thinking things like “World Cup” and “we could really win this”, having completely forgotten a first-half performance so inept that it prompted the Fiver’s Scottish cousin, Shortbread McFiver to spend 5p on a text that read: “Jings! Crivens! England are hilariously pish! This is the evening ma four-yearly World Cup paranoia evaporates! Pish, I tells ya!” His missive was followed up seconds later by a telegram from the Fiver’s Irish cousin, Theme Pub O’Fiver. “Begorrah. Stop. Sally O’Brien and the way she might look at ya. Stop. Egypt have scored! Stop. Ha. Stop. Ha. Stop. Ha. Stop.”

Prior to last night’s ding-dong, much of the discussion had centred on whether a famously discerning and in-no-way fickle Wembley mob (we’re obliged to describe as a minority even though it clearly isn’t) would boo England’s Brave Travis Bickle for … reasons best known to … somebody. They did, but half-heartedly and only until it was time to down pitchforks and flaming torches, and decide whether to (a) start cheering him instead, like they’ve done with David Beckham, Owen Hargreaves, Frank Lampard and Peter Crouch in the past, or (b) start booing Theo Walcott. In the end, making a decision within the remaining 80 minutes proved beyond the notoriously brain-dead crowd and it was a relieved Bickle who faced reporters after the game.

“We have the best fans in the world, it’s as simple as that,” said EBTB, who appears to have completely salvaged his reputation by making it through the 90 minutes without having an extra marital affair that we’re aware of or not being quite as comically inept at defending as in recent weeks. “We have a real chance of causing some problems at the World Cup,” he added, tempting fate in the time-honoured tradition before going all misty-eyed at the prospect of seeing his captain Rio Ferdinand putting his troublesome back out again as he hoists that famous gold trophy towards the sky.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“In my neighbourhood if you do [what John Terry is alleged to have done], you lose your legs, or more: you don’t survive” – Carlos Tevez has Wayne Bridge (and one or two others) wishing EBJT was born in Fort Apache, Buenos Aires.

SUPERFLUOUS BRANCHES, WE LOP AWAY THAT BEARING BOWS MAY LIVE

Today, after intensive mulling and chin-stroking, and despite much costly counsel from slick-talkin’ focus group wonks, the National Society for the Conservation of Injured Grasshoppers has decided against forming a national sub-committee devoted specifically to the conservation of injured grasshoppers. It seems some bright spark suddenly realised that that would be superfluous. Yes, that would be superfluous. Very superfluous indeed. And there’s no excuse for superfluity. No, nay, never.

Coincidentally, today a meeting of Premier League clubs concluded with representatives of those clubs, who are in the Premier League, announcing that there is no need to devise a new way of ascertaining every season which of the league’s teams are better, what with there already being a league. Accordingly, the proposal to introduce play-offs for England’s fourth Big Cup spot has been chucked into a cabinet marked “Do Not Use!”, where it may or may not dwell forever more alongside files such as the 39th Game, Pink Dungarees for Referees, and the Fit and Proper Persons Test.

In addition to thwarting Lovers of the Superfluous (who, the Fiver understands, like to be referred to by the acronym NDFNHFYTAYIOARJNEFNZAXJNFYAYTDFUADOFERT), this news comes as a great pity to fans of paper umbrellas, streaker-wear and other self-defeating notions. These folks were strong advocates of a play-off system, primarily because contriving to open the fourth Big Cup berth to the seventh-best team in the country would be the ideal way of ensuring that England’s co-efficient dropped sufficiently for the fourth place to be withdrawn.

FIVER LETTERS

“Not sure if twitter.com/garthcrooks is genuine, given the eclectic mix (Gok Wan and Andi Peters) that he’s following, but the following searing insight suggests it probably is him: ‘Peter Crouch is techincally (sic) a very good footballer, which is surprising given his height. about 14 hours ago via Echofon’. Good Touch For A Big Man hits Twitter!” – Gavin Hutchinson.

“‘… a lot more technical ability than people realise’ – Stewart Robson, Fox Soccer Plus” – Steven Sellars, Cayman Islands.

“I took a few mates to a game a couple of years ago, and we all stood behind the dugout on London Road terrace, within earshot of the big man, Keith Alexander. Danny: ‘Keith, Keith, get Gritton off, he’s [rude word].’ Keith turned to Danny and said: ‘You’re not wrong’. Five minutes later Gritton got the curly finger. RIP Keith” – Chris Mawdsley.

“Whilst at Lincoln City, Keith also used to turn out for a Sunday League team, Washingborough Utd, with absolutely no airs and graces. He moved to the Lincoln area and was very popular. Our regular 20-goals-a-season striker, Simon Yeo stayed out of loyalty to Keith, even when bigger clubs came calling. When Keith was out of management, he’d go shopping at Waitrose on a Saturday between 3-5pm to try to avoid the sympathy he’d get from City fans, but they still gave him it. He was our best manager since Graham Taylor and, following his fourth play-off, the club’s new board rewarded him by sending him on gardening leave (the club chairman then is now the bloke who’s taken over Notts County). They eventually messed Keith around so much that he walked and was eventually replaced by Peter Jackson – a bigger contrast with Keith there couldn’t be” – Stuart Goodacre.

“Re: the ongoing controversy over whether fresh or stale breadsticks would snap easier (Fivers passim). Seafton Cliffs (yesterday’s Fiver) seems to be confusing ‘bread’ (crust over soft centre) with ‘breadsticks’ (crunchy throughout). In the case of the latter, they are crisp when fresh and go soft when stale. Ergo a fresh one would snap more easily. Simple” – Stephen Brophy.

“Seaton Cliffs sounds like the name of an enclave in the Cheshire footballers’ commuter belt for those who can’t aspire to the heights of Alderley Edge. But leaving that aside, the floppy item he describes is not a bread stick, though it is sometimes known around-and-about these parts as a French stick. A breadstick is a grissini. The most cursory bit of Wiki-ing would have revealed this, as the first line of the entry for ‘breadstick’ reads: ‘Not to be confused with Baguettes’. D’oh! Or should that read: d’ough!” – Steve Allen.

“I like a good amount of butter and Primula cheese spread (the one with chives, not the prawn or ham monstrosities) on my fresh French baguette, but as a special treat, I am also quite partial to Ardennes Pâté – Duncan James.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also Tweet the Fiver now.

BITS AND BOBS

Diego Maradona says Argentina can win the World Cup, although it’s also technically true than New Zealand, North Korea and England can win it. “Maybe the press in Argentina won’t like it,” Maradona bugled, “but we are going to play a very good World Cup in South Africa.”

Bolton’s Stuart Holden will be out for six weeks with fibula ouch. “The most important thing is that he returns bigger and better,” said Owen Coyle, forcing lard into his player’s mouth.

French fans gave Thierry Henry a proper booing – rather than the drippy effort England supporters gave EBJT – last night during their team’s 2-0 defeat to Spain. “I absolutely had no pace,” panted Henry. “When you have to run after the ball after having only played one game in the last month and a half, it is really tough.”

Macclesfield’s match at Hereford will go ahead as scheduled this weekend following the death of the club’s manager, Keith Alexander. “It’s exactly what the gaffer would have wanted,” said Macclesfield’s assistant manager, Gary Simpson. “Keith just loved the game and the last thing he would have wanted was to cause any fuss.”

And Tomas Rosicky has joined the chorus of whining emanating from The Emirates stadium by endorsing the views of his manager Arsène Wenger by claiming referees are not protective enough of the club’s precious flowers. “Players are making five or six fouls before they are booked,” said Rosicky, as eight hulking centre-halves lunged at his ankles. “But we are making two fouls and are booked so I think we are certainly not protected enough.”

STILL WANT MORE?

Nasty Leeds’s owners have been declared fit and proper by the Football League, despite nobody knowing who the devil they are. Proper Journalist David Conn wearily shakes his head.

David Ginola leaves his silky mane and Barnsley’s defence flapping in his wake in this week’s Classic YouTube, which also includes the most ludicrous own goal ever.

Paul Doyle watched Ivory Coast get beaten by a much-improved South Korea at a chilly Loftus Road and he reckons the ailing Ivorians need a manager fast.

The Football Weekly gang were called up for international duty this week to bring you an extra dose of podcast. Download it NOW!

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FAIR POINTS OF OUR TIME: ‘IF 6 MUSIC IS AS MARVELLOUS AS THE TWITTER RENT-A-MOB MAKES OUT, WHY DOES NOBODY LISTEN TO IT?’

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England might be the best of Europe’s former World Cup winners, but Spain and Brazil look in a league of their own

Jeers for Germany in defeat at home to Argentina, derision aimed by the Parisian crowd at France in losing to Spain, a desultory goalless draw for Italy with Cameroon in Monaco – at least only one England player was booed at Wembley on Wednesday night, and even that piece of personalised dissent had subsided by the time Fabio Capello’s side took the lead against Egypt with a quarter of an hour to go.

A mixed night, then, for Europe’s reigning and former World Cup winners, with nine titles between them. Vicente del Bosque’s Spain, never better than semi-finalists, now look even more like the continent’s most promising contenders – perhaps followed by Holland, twice finalists but never winners, who beat the United States in Amsterdam.

Capello’s England remain a puzzle, with many questions, some of them fundamental, unanswered only three months ahead of their opening group match. As the Italian watched Brazil dispose of the Republic of Ireland with a confident second-half performance at the Emirates Stadium on Tusday night, he must have envied the relative calmness and logic with which Dunga has been able to marshal and prepare his forces.

Not that the Brazilian coach is without his noisy critics. There were placards around the Emirates demanding to know why he refuses to select Ronaldinho and Pato, but afterwards he was firm in his implied dismissal of the two Milan forwards. “Most players in Brazil are talented,” he said. “But we don’t live on talent. We live on results.” He left no doubt that he had made his dispositions, and that only an act of God would force him to reconsider his judgement.

Dunga and Capello have a lot in common. Both were pragmatic midfield players to whom aesthetics mattered not at all. The Brazilian has a simple philosophy, which he summarised this week. “First victory,” he said, “then a good way of playing.” You can imagine Capello thinking the same thing, although he would probably be a bit subtler in the way he expressed it. Dunga’s intransigence is necessary to keep at bay the hordes of highly opinionated compatriots who voice an opinion on his every move – “the 150 million selectors back home”, as his predecessor Carlos Alberto Parreira put it a few weeks before taking Brazil to USA ‘94 and their fourth championship.

That team was captained by Dunga, and he was saying the same sort of thing then as Brazil made their way to the final through a series of distinctly unbeguiling performances. Even the presence of Romário and Bebeto could not make the 1994 side into a thing of beauty, with Parreira relegating Rai, the svelte playmaker, to the substitutes’ bench after the group matches and resisting a national outcry against his decision to leave the 17-year-old Ronaldo on the sidelines throughout the tournament. Dunga has seen at first hand the benefit of draining the sentiment and romance out of such dilemmas.

In that tournament Parreira pioneered the use of two defensive midfielders, a move that provoked unrest among the 150 million back home. Dunga was paired with Mauro Silva ahead of a conventional back four, just as the superbly alert Felipe Melo and the terrific old warhorse Gilberto Silva locked the doors in front of a magnificently athletic defensive quartet against the Irish in north London. And when Kaká and Robinho are deployed in the advanced midfield positions, as Parreira had Zinho and Mazinho, there is always going to be something worth watching. Stung by a couple of impolite Irish tackles, Kaka was sensational in Wednesday’s second half, forgetting his indifferent form in Madrid and gradually taking over the game.

Once Grafite had replaced the ponderous Adriano in the lone striker’s role, Brazil’s combinations started to come off and culminated in the flickering rapid-fire move, involving three men, five exchanges and two backheels, from which Robinho – who seemed to have been informed during the interval that this was a home game – doubled their lead.

Although pre-tournament friendlies are perennially unreliable as indicators of eventual form in the real thing, you would certainly rather be in Dunga’s shoes than Capello’s. But then Capello would rather be in his own shoes than in those of Raymond Domenech, whose continuing presence as France’s head coach remains an utter mystery. At least Capello has some decent qualifying performances to look back on, along with the players’ respect and the goodwill of the public. How Domenech must be wishing that he could reach into the past and coax the irreplaceable Zinedine Zidane back into action once again.

The poor form of Joachim Löw’s Germany’s can be virtually discounted, since they are always capable of rising to the demands of a World Cup’s final stages. But Argentina’s win, with a goal from Gonzalo Higuaín, suggests that Diego Maradona’s chaotic regime may spring a surprise, even with Juan Román Riquelme languishing at home, the 35-year-old Juan Sebastián Verón pulling the strings, and Carlos Tevez and Sergio Agüero left on the bench.

Like his compatriot Marcello Lippi, who tried out a back three for the first time against Cameroon, Capello is still experimenting with formations and combinations, hoping to get lucky. It must be comforting to be a Brazilian fan and to know that Dunga makes his decisions with such clarity of vision (and, of course, abundance of resources), while Maradona’s appeal to his players’ emotions may turn out to be Argentina’s most unanswerable weapon. But sometimes, as we know, the most effective teams discover their shape and character during the tournament itself. And the World Cup is seldom won by the most gifted team, which England patently are not.

For full story go to here

Today’s speculation used to deal in financial risks …

Staring through the window of London’s horrible Kings Cross branch of Dixons late last night, booing happily to itself through its rubberised England’s Brave John Terry mask (sex face version), The Mill felt certain of one thing. There can be no doubt now that, as long as you squint, look away slightly, gouge one eye with a cocktail stick and medicine yourself heavily with furniture polish, that there are plenty of teams better placed than ENGLAND who ARE GOING TO find it much easier TO WIN THE WORLD CUP.

This morning the newspapers agree. “CROUCH PUTS FAB IN NILE HIGH CLUB” The Sun says, before suggesting that “diamond Giza Peter Crouch …. a Nile-lated African champions Egypt.” Crouch is described as “the towering striker”, which makes him sound simply tall and muscular and is much better than “gangling” or “beanpole” which he gets when he’s been crap.

John Terry is rated 7/10, but then so is Theo Walcott, who looked small and frightened. The Daily Mail says “England cannot afford to be without John Terry in South Africa, nor the absent bogeyman Ashley Cole”. Absent bogeymen, that’s the problem these days.

The Mirror deadpans: “Collect your World Cup tickets on the way out, Peter and Shaun. Thanks but no thanks Theo.” Wes Brown and Matthew Upson get 5/10. Barry got 7/10. The rest get 6/10 apart from the Hero of the Match Crouch, who gets 8/10. The Times awards Upson an unforgiving 4/10, warning he “did little to inspire confidence that England can cope without Rio Ferdinand”, who gets more and more reliable the more time he spends on his baggy quilted calfskin corner unit surround sofa listening to banging R ‘n’ B flavas and eating cola bottles. Jermain Defoe: “Looked threatening because his pace gives England an added dimension, but has yet to demonstrate that he can finish as well under pressure as Michael Owen”. Which sounds right.

Meanwhile back in the real world of non-inconclusive-England-friendly-related football chaff, The Mirror has Chelsea “chasing” Benfica’s Brazilian defender David Luiz, who might be available for £10m. Luiz is “one of his nation’s top prospects”. He also has tight, corkscrew-curly hair, of a type that’s often ginger. Chelsea’s wanted list also includes Atletico Madrid’s Sergio Aguero, Monaco’s midfielder Jerko Leko, Jack Rodwell, and a properly reliable builder, but not one of those new type of middle class builders who might have once been an actuary or something and who seem charming at first but who take ages to do anything, talk too much, don’t really know anything about building and get really pissy when you point any of these things out.

Sunderland’s manager Steve Bruce is “in talks” with the Paraguay midfielder and Hispanic Superman actor Cristian Riveros. Riveros plays for Mexican side Cruz Azul and will be available on a free transfer in the summer. Steven Reid, formerly the new Roy Keane, is going to join Sheffield Wednesday on loan from Blackburn. And Micah Richards has “fallen foul of a Facebook fraudster”, who set up a fake page with “shots of the Manchester City and England defender flaunting his six-pack, as a child and out clubbing”. Which is only interesting for the news that Richards had a six-pack as a child and, less so, that he flaunts it while out clubbing.

“Captions under some pictures suggest the fraudster is using the profile to get girls to send naked pictures,” The Mirror adds. “Micah has cleaned up his act and it’s wrong what this person is doing. Micah would have been really stupid to set this up himself,” chipped in his agent, causing the ancient, cobwebbed cogs in the Mill’s brain to judder and finally turn and a hazy picture of what might actually be going on here to take shape. It’s that “would have to be really stupid”.

The Mail says José Mourinho still wants to buy Steven Gerrard in the summer. “Mourinho has been monitoring Liverpool’s stuttering season and is now confident enough to tell president Massimo Moratti to make the midfielder a priority for an end-of-season spending spree.”

Real Madrid striker Gonzalo Higuain has turned down a new contract. Manchester City are “interested”, although they might just be being polite. And Arsène Wenger still wants to buy the Brazil midfielder Felipe Melo. “We are still looking at Melo,” Wenger said, speaking from inside his brushwood and leaf-draped temporary shack, lowering his night vision goggles and thoughtfully lighting another slim panatela cigar.

In The Sun Carlos Tevez is still blathering about things he has only ever had explained to him — apparently wrongly – in overly sycophantic and partial translation. “CARLOS TEVEZ last night launched an astonishing attack on John Terry and warned: “If you acted like this in Argentina you’d be dead.”

Tev reckons if someone in his homeland had an affair with a team-mate’s girlfriend, like Terry did with Wayne Bridge, they “would not survive”. Ex-girlfriend Carlos. Ex. Ex-girlfriend. Put down the butter knife.

“I don’t think you can do that with the wife of another player,” Tevez raged, pointlessly, righting imagined wrongs, slaying invisible ghosts and ignoring the nervous, throat-clearing interjections of his weak-willed and bashful translator.

Shay Given believes maddening rubber-limbed ball-hog Robinho will come back to Manchester City from Santos. “Hopefully, he’ll do well there and at the World Cup — and come back a better player,” he said, getting a kind of sinking feeling even as he said it and just sort of tailing off at the end.

The entirely credible soccer personality Sven-Goran Eriksson has denied he wants to manage the Ivory Coast at the World Cup. “No, no no, this job has nothing to do with me,” Eriksson said, accidentally brushing your thigh with his hand and just leaving it there for a moment too long.

And on Goal.com Adriano’s agent says his man is keen to join Roma, Barcelona, Real Madrid or, failing that, the back of the queue at the Clapham branch of Chicken Cottage, where they also do small, greasy samosas and horribly grey-looking ribs that seem to have been pre-mauled by a feral dog.

For full story go to here

• Spain remain top in front of Brazil and Holland
• Germany move to fifth ahead of Portugal

England have moved up one place to eighth in the latest Fifa rankings by swapping places with Argentina.

Fabio Capello’s side face Africa Cup of Nations champions Egypt, who have dropped seven places to 17th, at Wembley this evening.

Germany switch places with Portugal to move up to fifth while Euro 2004 champions Greece (10th) are back in the top 10 for the first time since June 2008.

Spain remain in first place ahead of Brazil and Holland, while The Republic of Ireland have dropped two places to 39th with Northern Ireland up one place in 40th. Scotland have also moved up one place to 45th but Wales remain 76th.

For full story go to here

• Left back set to start away to Chelsea
• City will not appeal Adebayor red card, Tevez returns

Roberto Mancini says that Wayne Bridge is in the right mental state to play for Manchester City against a Chelsea side featuring John Terry tomorrow.

Although Bridge pulled out of the running for a place in England’s World Cup squad yesterday, citing a personal feud with Terry as the prime reason Mancini, the Manchester City manager, says he will retain the left back position in his starting XI.

“I think Wayne is OK,” said Mancini. “I don’t know what has happened in the last two weeks but I am sorry for him. But mentally he is fine. He is an important player for us and we want him to play.”

Only a fortnight ago Mancini expressed confidence that Bridge would go to South Africa, despite the obvious issues with Terry over his affair with Vanessa Perroncel, the mother of Bridge’s young son.

So it came as a shock to both Mancini and the England coach, Fabio Capello, when Bridge released his statement yesterday saying that his position within the Three Lions fold was now “untenable”.

“I thought Wayne would stay with the national team,” said Mancini. “It must have been a very difficult decision because I know how important the national team is for any player.”

Mancini skirted the issue of whether Terry should be the one backing out of the England set-up, and could shed no light either on whether Bridge will shake Terry’s hand tomorrow in traditional pre-match fashion.

“Wayne must only think about the game,” said Mancini. “He is a very good player and a good man. I hope he will play well tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Mancini confirmed City would not appeal against the red card shown to Emmanuel Adebayor at Stoke City on Wednesday.

It means Adebayor will be banned for four games, starting tomorrow, the additional match coming as a result of his previous suspension for violent conduct when he stamped on Robin van Persie earlier this season.

The one piece of good news for City was confirmation that Carlos Tevez has arrived in London and will be reunited with his team-mates later this afternoon. Mancini will assess the Argentina star’s fitness before deciding whether to name Tevez in his starting line-up at Stamford Bridge.

For full story go to here

All the way through this frenzy it was impossible to stop wondering how Sven-Goran Eriksson would have handled it

In the vast mediasphere we see the moral absolutists going over the top to demand a crucifixion, then the moral relativists ride in to cut the absolutists down. The ironists usually win in the end because they have the best jokes and can float above the fray, claiming detachment, parading superior intellect.

It is just a game, like football: a journalistic, blogtastic game of sanctimony versus cool. England’s is a culture talking itself to brain death. Outside the circulation war and its website equivalent most English folk positioned themselves between extremes. They thought John Terry was a wild man, a slave to his appetites, but mistrusted the assertion that an England captain should be sacked for having extra-marital sex, which this saga was never really about. At its heart was persistent misuse of the leader’s role: the latest being the allegation that an associate of Terry’s management team offered the use of his skipper’s subsidised Wembley box for £4,000 in readies.

A picture formed of Terry as a desperate opportunist who will take you round Chelsea’s training ground for £10,000 in £50 notes, park on a disabled space and hawk access to the England captain in the run-up to a World Cup. Of course, these cravings, this recklessness, contradict the image he projected of himself on the pitch. The indomitable warrior, the East End enforcer, turned out to have no control at all.

All the way through this frenzy it was impossible to stop wondering how Sven-Goran Eriksson would have handled it. It is safe to assume the phrases “zero tolerance” and “not on my watch” would have been far from Eriksson’s lips as Terry went through the gamut of mortifying scrutiny and censure and finally lost the armband at Wembley on Friday.

During Svennis’ spell in the radioactive tracksuit there were many tense Saturday nights at the Football Association’s headquarters as press officers awaited the thud of the red-top first editions. One imagines the fire-dousers playing Texas Hold’em and glancing twitchily at the clock in the hope that there would be no fake sheikh or Ulrika Jonsson, no cry of “action stations!”

Jamie Carragher in his autobiography describes Eriksson’s response to a newspaper story about women sneaking into the England billets. Carragher writes: “‘There’s no need to have girls in the team hotel,’ Sven told us. ‘If you see someone you like, just get her phone number and arrange to go to her house after the game. Then we will have no problems.’”

You can even hear him saying it. Until Fabio Capello acted with ruthless clarity on Friday afternoon we were back to those days of fearing the News of the World’s power to make people rich for kissing and telling, as the FA rifled its media contacts book to find out what today’s prints might carry. Is there any other country, one wonders, that is run by Sunday revelation?

At least it was only a player this time, not the manager. From laissez-faire the FA ran with their pants on fire to the other end of the spectrum, where rectitude and righteousness reside. There they found Capello, who commendably insisted that Terry motor to Wembley for their debrief rather than join him in some paparazzi-evading caper round the shires. We knew some kind of clash was coming, from the day the Don was appointed, but no one could have expected such a spectacular collision of order and chaos.

So what have we learned from this excruciating modern tale of the insatiable in pursuit of the unallowable? First, that there are thousands of saints in Burnley and Hull. The blameless multitudes who booed the Chelsea captain in games last week are presumably all close friends of Wayne Bridge as well as defenders of the public good who have never sinned.

Second, that actions have consequences with Capello, who barely sees the names on England shirts, only the duties the crest confers. We thought Capello’s decision would be hard. He made it look easy. Terry had confronted a kind of stern Italian referee who limped over to him, pointed to the three spots on the pitch where he had already fouled up and showed him the red card. You don’t need to be Norman Tebbit to feel that parking in disabled spaces, urinating on dance floors and using the role of England captain to do deals for cash is unbecoming of the role.

The World Cup will be rammed with compromised household names. Terry joins a distinguished cast. For starters there is Thierry Henry, who double-cheated France past the Republic of Ireland with his two-stage handball. And let’s not leave out Diego Maradona, Argentina coach, fisted-goal artiste, performance-enhancing drug cheat and tax amnesiac during his time in Serie A. Is there a place in the hills where we can escape what we are?

Agony of Hargreaves leaves a black hole

Potentially more damaging than the John Terry brouhaha for Fabio Capello as he lay on his Italian barge recovering from knee surgery was the confirmation that England will have to go to the World Cup without a specialist defensive midfielder. Owen Hargreaves has been left out of Manchester United’s squad for the Champions League knockout rounds and has virtually no chance of playing himself into shape for South Africa after more than 16 months out with chronic tendinitis.

Hargreaves has travelled the road from derision to deification in England colours and there will be no chance for him to repeat his exemplary performances of 2006 in Germany. Nor can the back four expect to be screened by a specialist tackler, space blocker and short-passer. Gareth Barry is the closest Capello now has to a defensively minded central midfielder in a team set up to allow Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to shine in forward areas.

Brazil and Spain are almost over‑staffed in the holding midfield department and England should fear the thought of Kaká, Ronaldo, Xavi or Iniesta skipping through them in the No 10 area. That is another reason England need a National Football Centre: to fill these positional black holes.

Five great unfulfilled quests

1 Andy Murray’s weak first serve and lack of aggression were concealed by Roger Federer’s genius in the Australian Open final but suggest Britain’s No 1 still has mental blocks to shift before he can win a grand slam title. His best hope is to snaffle one of the softer ones when Federer has been knocked out.

2 Tim Henman had that problem with Pete Sampras and found the outer limits of his talent in Wimbledon semi‑finals. His new challenge is to break the diplomacy barrier of the ex-player on the BBC sofa.

3 Paula Radcliffe’s hunt for an Olympic gold to go with all her street marathons has featured tears and breakdowns and debates about choking and physical courage. London 2012 is her last chance. Have a hankie ironed.

4 Colin Montgomerie, a colossus of Ryder Cup golf, never mastered the lonely art of winning a major. Team cosiness brought out the gladiator in him. The majors brought the demons in by the coachload.

5 Steven Gerrard has won the Champions League, Uefa Cup, FA Cup and League Cup at Liverpool but not the Premier League. Chances of it now? Between slim and none, and slim’s not answering his phone.

Cause of the week

A prohibition on calls for Tiger Woods to show “humility” when he returns to golf would be welcome after Tom Watson, who himself gave up alcohol, advised the world’s No1 golfer to prostrate himself before the gallery.

“When he comes back he has to show some humility to the public,” Watson says. Why? What does his private life have to do with them?

Forced humility is pointless anyway. Woods could do with ceasing to be a Nike construct on legs and engage with golf’s spirit more. But I can’t face the thought of him trudging on to greens like Uriah Heep.

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• Messi ‘the closest thing to Maradona’
• ‘Fabio Capello is a special manager’

David Beckham has warned that Argentina’s Lionel Messi could take the World Cup by storm this summer but insists England are “lucky” to have an exceptional group of players themselves.

The England midfielder rates the Barcelona forward as “the closest player” to England’s 1986 nemesis Diego Maradona but believes Fabio Capello can count on a number of key men when England mount their challenge.

Beckham told the Fifa website: “Messi is one of the best players I’ve played against and also one of the finest players I’ve ever seen. For a little player, he’s so talented. He’s the closest player to Maradona that you can get and he even plays in a similar passionate way too.

“He’s successful and a really good person as well. I’m sure he’ll go on to be even more successful in the future.”

Asked who was England’s answer to Messi, the 34-year-old said: “I think we’ve got many key players in our team: Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, John Terry, Rio Ferdinand – we’ve got players all the way through our team who are exceptional. We’re lucky to have such a talented group of players.

“Fabio Capello is a special manager. He has so much experience. He knows how to win games and he knows how to win competitions.

“I’m sure he’ll relish the time when he walks out as England manager to take charge of the team for his first match at a World Cup. To sit on the sideline and watch his team, I’m sure will be a proud moment for him.

“It’s the biggest footballing competition in the world, so any player who is lucky enough to be part of a World Cup knows how special it really is.

“I’ve been lucky to have played in three and hopefully I’ll be luckier still to play in a fourth. It really is an incredible feeling.”

Beckham’s high and low points in previous World Cups have both come against Argentina, and he may get another chance to face his old foes in South Africa in the summer, though England cannot face them before the quarter-finals.

The Milan midfielder, who would become the first England player to appear at four World Cups, said his best memory of past tournaments came against Argentina in 2002 – the side he was sent off against in 1998.

He added: “On a personal note I’d have to say the game against Argentina in 2002, where I scored the penalty [is my best memory].

“It’s always special to beat your rivals, but obviously four years earlier I got sent off against them and we were beaten on penalties. To score the winning goal against them four years later was extremely special.”

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• Terry, Gerrard, Torres, Evra and Vidic in World XI
• Marta wins women’s award for fourth consecutive year

Lionel Messi has been named the Fifa Fifpro World Player of the Year. The Argentina and Barcelona forward won the accolade for the first time for helping his club win an unprecedented six trophies, including the Champions League and the domestic league title.

The 22-year-old beat last year’s winner Cristiano Ronaldo, his two club mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi, and Brazil midfielder Kaka. He was presented with the trophy at an awards ceremony in Zurich.

Messi said: “I’m extremely happy. We’ve just ended a historic year, a perfect year in which we’ve won every competition we’ve played in. We just needed to take this last step and everything has worked out how we wanted. It’s amazing.”

Brazil’s Marta was the recipient of the women’s award for the fourth consecutive year. England’s Kelly Smith, who left Arsenal to play in the new Women’s Professional Soccer league for Boston Breakers earlier this year, was named amongst the top five. Smith said: “This is a real honour for me. It was tough for me to leave my home country because I’m very proud and passionate to be English. I just wanted to be amongst the best players in the world and that’s certainly the case and I’m now pursuing my dream.”

Two England players made it into Fifa’s World XI, along with three other Premier League players. The England and Chelsea captain John Terry and Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard were among the players named tonight in the Fifa World XI. Manchester United defenders Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra and Liverpool striker Fernando Torres also made the team

The XI, voted for by members of the international professional footballers’ union FIFPro, were: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), John Terry (Chelsea), Nemanja Vidic (Man Utd), Patrice Evra (Man Utd), Daniel Alves (Barcelona), Xavi (Barcelona), Andres Iniesta (Barcelona), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Fernando Torres (Liverpool).

Terry said: “There is no higher accolade than to be voted for by your fellow professionals so we are all very proud.”

Ronaldo won the Fifa Puskas award for the best goal of the 2008/09 season for his long-range effort for Manchester United against Porto in the Champions League in April.

The Fifa Fair Play Award was given posthumously to Sir Bobby Robson for his “outstanding commitment to the values of fair play throughout his career”. The award was collected by his widow Elsie.

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Rare misses for Lampard and Defoe – does it really mean the Three Lions will pay the penalty again next summer?

No sooner had the old country been given another benign draw in the World Cup than people were missing penalties. Or goalkeepers were saving them. Either way the fact that two England players were among the four Premier League footballers who failed to score from the spot last weekend awoke some familiar misgivings about the team’s chances in South Africa.

Visions of Fabio Capello’s team emerging hopeful from their group only to make a tearful departure at the knockout stage after yet another bout of foot-shooting in a shoot-out sent a familiar shudder through English souls. Frank Lampard, normally one of the Premier League’s most reliable marksmen, could not beat Shay Given to give Chelsea the chance of taking at least a point from Manchester City and Jermain Defoe cost Tottenham a win at Everton when his penalty in stoppage time was blocked by Tim Howard’s legs.

Amid much gloomy concern Matthew Le Tissier, the former Southampton craftsman who put away 47 of the 48 kicks he took during his playing career, volunteered his services as a penalty coach to the national squad. “I’d try and coach them the way I took them,” he explained. Grateful though Capello and his players must be for Le Tissier’s offer it should be pointed out that England have had few problems in World Cups with penalties in open play. Gary Lineker successfully took two in succession against Cameroon in 1990 and Alan Shearer and David Beckham coolly converted theirs against Argentina in 1998 and 2002 respectively.

The trouble arises in shoot-outs, when it becomes as much a question of temperament as technique. “I’d hope that the players would have enough bottle to keep their heads cool in the situation and not be afraid to change their minds at the last minute if they have to,” is Le Tissier’s advice.

His experience in such matters should be respected even though he was never required to take a kick on which the presence of his country in the final of a major tournament depended. When a penalty taker changes his mind at the last second he sometimes miscues, yet keeping a keeper guessing is part of the art. The problem for those taking penalties in the modern game arises from the change in the law which means that goalkeepers are no longer required to remain rooted to the line until the ball is struck. Whereas previously a keeper had to stand without moving his feet he can now jump up and down, dive early and generally fanny about provided he does not come off his goalline, which many do anyway.

Of course the penalty taker still retains the crucial advantage of knowing where he intends the ball to go but it could be argued that this advantage has been reduced by the licence goalkeepers now enjoy. Shoot-outs probably hastened the amendment in the law since their introduction saw a rapid increase in goalkeepers flouting the rule on not moving before a kick was taken combined with the reluctance of referees to apply it.

The only instance that springs to mind of a penalty in a shoot-out having to be taken again was one which an English official, George Courtney, disallowed when Spain out-shot Denmark in the semi-finals of the 1984 European Championship. Of course penalties in shoot-outs are not penalties in the punitive sense. They are simply an expedient to avoid the necessity of a replay or, once upon a time, the drawing of lots to decide the winners, which would have been fate of the 1966 World Cup final had England and West Germany still been level at the end of two hours. No prizes for guessing who would have won that raffle.

Shoot-outs are a battle of wits between strikers and goalkeepers which are quite separate from the preceding contest, and the cunning of the custodians is part of the drama. Penalties proper, however, are usually the result of an attacker being denied a scoring chance, or the chance of creating one, through illegal means and it is tempting to wonder if giving goalkeepers room to manoeuvre is within the spirit of the game and that perhaps the law on movement should only have been relaxed for the post-match pot-shots. By the way, all four goalkeepers who saved those penalties last weekend were not English and, even worse, one was an American. As Robertson Hare used to exclaim: “Oh Calamity!”

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