Both Duff (rib) and Kelly (groin) received injuries - Kelly is deifinitely out of Tuesday's game. Hangeland took a knock but seems okay. Let's hope nothing happens to Bobby, who according to reports attributed to Capello will start against Sweden.
I don't understand the need for friendlies this time of the year. (Ireland is on play-offs alongside with other teams.) Some times Uefa and Fifa forget who's paying their players...
I hate friendlies. All international games are junk, if you ask me. It might not be so bad if FIFA wasn't so hopelessly corrupt. And national teams ought to be responsible for a team's for financial losses when players are injured. If Zamora's injured for six months, the FA ought to be responsible for his salary at a minimum, plus his value loss on the market.
Didn't that happen to West Ham when Dean Ashton had his career ended while on England duty? I think they are looking for £10.5m when he cost about £7m.
I believe that this is largely the case. The FA takes out insurance, and pays the wages of players injured on England duty. I don't think they cover any potential loss of transfer value, but that's a lot harder to accurately assess. I don't agree with the comments above about international football. I accept that the Champions League has now outstripped the world cup as the place where we see the best teams, but I still think that international football has a place. It seems to me that whatever time they schedule international friendlies - which most international managers regard as essential for team building - people will complain. The one thing that international games bring that club matches can't is uniting fans in a common cause. It's rare for a club in a European final to have universal support in their country (we did, of course, but that's because no expects us to get there). When one of the big teams is there, their rivals all want them to lose. When England are doing well (I'm old enough to remember that!) everybody gets behind them. Give me a choice of Fulham winning something, or England winning something, and I'd choose Fulham without having to think about it. But international football still has an important place.
FIFA is corrupt and national teams are rarely much fun to watch, but here's the big problem, if you ask me. Nationalism as played out in sports brings out worst in people, whether its Dutch players and fans spitting on German players or the hooliganism that follows national teams from place to place. Last year the Polish national team played in Germany and the Germans had to put out about 1,000 police officers to keep the peace. Now, don't get me wrong. I know and interact with Polish and Dutch people often enough, and feel comfortable enough making the following generalization: Dutch people don't hate German people. The Dutch may dislike the German government, its history and business practices - but the people? Never. Same thing with Poles. (And I'm not suggesting Americans like me, or Germans like my friends, are in any way guilt-free in this.) Yet something strange happens in the hearts of the Dutch and Poles when their teams march onto the pitch with the Germans. Rationality and decency are replaced by aggressive, chest-thumping emotions, and suddenly people who would happily smile at and hold a door for a German under normal circumstances are reliving WWII. El Salvador and Honduras went to war over a football game. Nationalism divides and dehumanizes. It's of the devil.
Interesting. I don't like International Football and hardly ever watch an England match. For me it's not the rampant nationalism which goes with the football (which is understandable given it is the country that is playing so it, unfortunately in many cases, attracts that kind of support). It is the completely unrealistic hyping of England's chances in any tournament that the press creates that really turns me off. Not that this is restricted to the British press of course. I was in Spain during the last world cup and after they had rather surprisingly lost 1-0 to Switzerland the headline in Marca on the day they played Honduras translated as: We must Win, Win, Win, Win, Win, Win - which I guess got the point across but was hardly a subtle message.
Duff has been given the all clear following a scan and should play tonight. Not injured but Etuhu was subbed after 62mins, in Nigeria's game v Zambia. The score was 0-0. Nigeria went on to win 5-4 on penalties, after extra time.
