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England v USA


Besty
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Venue: Wembley

Date: Wednesday, 28 May

Kick-off: 2005 BST

Coverage: Live on BBC One

 

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England boss Fabio Capello is set to deploy Wayne Rooney as a second striker for the match at Wembley.

 

Capello is without Michael Owen who has a virus, so Rooney will partner either Arsenal's Theo Walcott or West Ham's Dean Ashton, who is yet to win a cap.

 

Frank Lampard is set to start, while David Beckham has impressed Capello in training and could feature.

 

Landon Donovan is set to make his 100th appearance for the USA, who are unbeaten in their last five games.

 

"I saw David in training work very well," said Capello. "It was good. He is very fresh as the US players have just started their season.

 

"The fixture is good for David. He is very fit."

 

Lampard was part of the Chelsea team which lost the Champions League final on penalties and Capello added: "I'm very happy to see him in the midfield because I think he's a very important player for us.

 

"For Chelsea players it is very important to play and forget the last game in Moscow."

 

Capello has welcomed an extended spell with his players to get his ideas across to them.

 

He has his squad for 10 days for Wednesday's game against USA and Sunday's trip to Trinidad & Tobago.

 

"It is very important because the players can know what I think about their position," said the Italian.

 

Keeper Chris Kirkland and midfielder Jermaine Jenas were forced to pull out of the squad, along with Owen, because of injury.

 

But, otherwise, Capello has a fully-fit squad which he has been putting through its paces with two daily training sessions.

 

Chelsea and Manchester United's contingent were in action for the Champions League final but most of his squad have had a break since the end of the season on 11 May.

 

"The players have worked very well and trained for four sessions in two days," said Capello.

 

"After 10 days holiday, we needed two sessions a day and they have worked very well."

Edited by Besty
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1907: England team just in: James, Brown, Ferdinand, Terry, A Cole, Hargreaves, Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Defoe.

 

Who is on the left? Hargreaves/Gerrard?

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Should be good to see a strong England team against about a half-to-two-thirds strength USA squad. England should cruise to a 2 or 3-0 win on paper. Should be good to see how the US copes without Donovan to run the middle. I'd have liked to see a forward who might actually hit the broadside of a barn (not Johnson) or who might actually have a role to play in World Cup Qualifying (not Wolff) but we'll see how it goes. Should be good experience for Bradley, Clark and the other young guys.

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  Andrew said:
who's missing from a full strength usa side?

 

Donovan, Altidore, and Bornstein spring to mind immediately.

I'd have to think a bit more to come up with specific players to replace the ones in the squad, but guys like Hejduk, Wolff, and Lewis are over-the-hill space-fillers. Jacqua is a warm-body who couldn't cut it in MLS as anything above average, ditto with Califf who's playing in Denmark or some-such.

Maurice Edu is a quite good young player who was called in after an injury, so hasn't had much time with the squad, but would probably be in the starting lineup if he'd been with the squad the whole time. A lot of fans would be screaming for Jay DeMerit as well.

 

Edit:

 

The MLS season is still going on, so some of the better performers there would have been spared just so as to keep their clubs happy (just like not calling in all the European based players for domestic friendlies.) Bob Bradley is also balancing these friendlies against Olympic games which are coming up this summer, so he doesn't want to pull the younger players away too much. Probably would see guys like Sacha Kljestian, Danny Szetela and such in the squad if not for those considerations.

Edited by Zathras
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  bawan said:
Brian Mcbride not a USA international ?

 

Retired after the World Cup. Still don't have an adequate replacement for him either. :blink:

Altidore will get there, but he's still 18.

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Seeing as it's 2:30 PM here, I'm going to watch this when I get home, so I'll be signing off now.

 

Any more questions about US players I'll try to answer if appropriate tomorrow.

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My 8 year old daughter just asked me "why do they have the bloke from the crisps advert presenting football"?

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  Smooth Operator said:
  Jimbo said:
I see Lampard did his usual invisible man routine again tonight.

 

Yeah but you gotta admit he's world class at doing it!!

 

 

I think Rooney is sharing his allergy to the England shirt tonight.

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