England loads up for the World Cup
England, the first opponent for the U.S. at next month’s World Cup in South Africa, on Tuesday named a formidable preliminary roster for the monthlong tournament that it hopes to win for the first time since 1966.
Coach Fabio Capello included five forwards in his squad. Together, they scored 79 goals in the English Premier League in the season that ended on Saturday, when Chelsea edged Manchester United for the title.
The five are led by Manchester United’s Wayne Rooney, with 26 goals, and include Sunderland’s Darren Bent (24), Tottenham Hotspur’s Jermain Defoe (18) and Peter Crouch (8), and Aston Villa’s Emile Heskey (3).
Four members of Chelsea’s championship team, which will play Portsmouth in the F.A. Cup final on Saturday, are on the England roster: defenders John Terry and Ashley Cole and midfielders Frank Lampard and Joe Cole.
England, like the U.S., also plays Slovenia and Algeria in the tournament’s first round.
Mexico’s opening opponent is World Cup host nation South Africa, whose Brazilian coach, Carlos Alberto Parreira, on Tuesday selected 29 players, including 10 based in Europe.
The squad includes all-time leading scorer Benni McCarthy of West Ham United and midfielder Steven Pienaar, a teammate of Galaxy forward Landon Donovan when Donovan was on loan to Everton.
Mexico also plays France and Uruguay in the first round, and French Coach Raymond Domenech has surprised some by excluding three big-name players from his squad.
Domenech, a self-acknowledged maverick, omitted Real Madrid forward Karim Benzema, who cost the Spanish club $44 million last summer; Arsenal’s elusive midfielder Samir Nasri, and veteran Manchester City midfielder Patrick Vieira, a World Cup winner for Les Bleus in 1998.
France was not the only World Cup-bound team to leave big-name players off its roster.
Italy, the defending world champion, did not select three of its 2006 World Cup-winning forwards, Luca Toni, Francesco Totti and Alessandro del Piero.
However, New Jersey-born striker Giuseppe Rossi, who plays for Villarreal in Spain, was included in Coach Marcelo Lippi’s squad of 30.
Another player with strong American connections also might be heading to South Africa with a team other than the U.S. Defender Neven Subotic, 21, who lived as a youth in Utah and Florida and now plays for Borussia Dortmund in Germany, was named to Serbia’s preliminary squad.
Elsewhere, Brazil Coach Dunga decided not to pick the AC Milan attacking duo of Ronaldinho, a two-time FIFA world player of the year and a World Cup winner in 2002, and Alexandre Pato.
Dunga praised Ronaldinho, saying his “quality and capacity as a player is indisputable,” but said he still had to make the decision to omit the 30-year-old.
Forward Adriano also was left out of the running.
Meanwhile, Argentina Coach Diego Maradona left veterans Esteban Cambiasso and Javier Zanetti off his preliminary roster even though both players have been instrumental in leading Inter Milan to the May 22 European Champions League final and are about to help the club win its fifth consecutive Italian title.
The Netherlands, another of the teams expected to do well in the June 11-July 11 tournament, left veteran forward Ruud van Nistelrooy off its roster.
Spain Coach Vicente del Bosque rewarded the 2008 European Championship-winning team by including 18 of its members on his preliminary roster. Del Bosque included Fernando Torres, Xavi and Cesc Fabregas on his squad, believing that they would overcome injuries before the World Cup begins.
All 32 World Cup teams have to reduce their rosters to the final 23 by June 1.
