Scolari has included Paulinho in his squad for the summer, but not Sandro. Chelsea's quartet of David Luiz, Ramires, Oscar and Willian make the cut, as does City's Fernandinho, but there's no room for Coutinho or Lucas Leiva. Our old friend Leandro Damião joins a stellar side of omissions, which include Robinho, Ronaldinho, Pato, Lucas Moura and a horde of others.
Brad Friedel will also be attending the World Cup, but as a pundit for BBC radio. Wonder if he's any good?
Brad is a favourite on Talksport. He's an insightful man. I could listen to him for hours if it wasn't for that accent. No Sandro? Who the hell does Scolari think he is? I can hear the fans singing "Scolari out" from here.
Gutted for Sandro that he's not going. Can't help but feel that his mystifying omissions this year have had an effect. Mind you I have no idea how regular he was for Brazil before this wonderful season that we've all enjoyed. Will be interesting to see what Paulinho actually does. (Increase in value you'd hope).
Bayern Munich's Rafinha and Man Utd's Rafael both didn't make it. That's two right-backs that would get into England's squad, in all likelyhood. Valencia's Diego Alves, Atletico's Diego, Luis and Miranda, PSG's Marquinhos... the list goes on.
Would have taken a serious injury crisis for Sandro to get into the squad in my opinion. Not been picked since Scolari took over again in 2012, due to unfortunate timing of injury and varying degrees of form. Can't really say that he has convinced anyone that his injury problems are behind him. Paulinho's going to be a really interesting watch, particularly watching him play in a midfield three rather than two. He seemed to play a bit of a 'Lampard role' at the Confederations Cup, breaking into the box and seemingly playing far more advanced than he has done for us. His role with Brazil seems pretty well established, whereas with us the whole team, let alone his own role appears somewhat confused. Overall I think he has done okay for us first season considering the circumstances and hopefully with a settled team/manager in place and experience of a first season in England will do far better next year.
The biggest problem with the World Cup is the cost of that f&*%ing sticker book. 2 kids x 639 stickers x 50p per pack of 5 + all the flaming swaps (we've got 3 Yaya Toures out of a total of 50 stickers already ) = the GDP of Brazil at least
Hodgson is exactly the wrong manager for what England has at the moment. Get Huddlestone and/or Gerrard pinging the ball to Sturridge, Stirling, Lallana, Lambert and/or maybe Lennon or Townsend and we'd see some exciting football from England for once. Hodgson will park the bus and try to scrape through on scoreless draws. It probably won't work, and it will definitely bore the pants off everyone. I'm really looking forward to watching Chile. They're going to spend every second either trying to score or trying to get the ball back.
There certainly is a good player in there somewhere. Everyone would benefit from continuity. Paulinho is good if he can both be a ball winner and chip in with goals and assists. It's a little tricky, though, because he can't shoot from range and doesn't do well either distributing the ball or protecting the back four. There's been a lot of criticism of how Sherwood has handled Sandro, understandably enough. He also hasn't benefited from the lack of continuity. But even taking all that into account, I'm not convinced he's the player he was pre-injury. I think he needed a regular run in the team to get his confidence back.
No inflationary rise again? Neat! Last one we did was Germany. We cut the cost by selling swaps on Ebay.
Good idea, Inda. I can imagine Neymar fetching as much on Ebay as in real life when he's the last sticker needed! People do get carried away very easily with their bidding.
