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Lippi announces 30-man squad with few changes

Marcello Lippi has earlier today announced his squad of 30 players for this World Cup. He will of course need to reduce this to 23 by June 1st. The only notable changes are the inclusion of Daniele De Rossi and Villarreal striker Giuseppe Rossi. However Nicola Legrotaglie didn't make the cut.

The squad is as follows: -

Goalkeepers: Buffon, Marchetti, De Sanctis, Sirigu

Defenders: Bocchetti, Bonucci, F. Cannavaro, Cassani, Chiellini, Criscito, Grosso, Maggio, Zambrotta

Midfielders: Camoranesi, Candreva, Cossu, De Rossi, Gattuso, Marchisio, Montolivo, Palombo, Pepe, Pirlo

Strikers: Borriello, Di Natale, Gilardino, Iaquinta, Pazzini, G. Rossi, Quagliarella

The squad almost matches the one he took to the Borghesiana training retreat at the beginning of the month. In my eyes there is a decent mix of youth and experience, I was expecting a much older squad but these are encouraging signs.

Kick off in Brazil

On Sunday afternoon the Campeonato Brasileiro, Brazilian National championship, kicked off in earnest following the conclusion of the circus show that is the regional championships. While it is a national championship most of the hype circulates around the sides from Brazil’s two biggest cities. Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, the league is still quite young only being established in 1971, before this the regional championships of the Carioca (Rio) and Paulista (Sao Paolo) were considered far more prestigious competitions. Also this year Santos are making all of the pre-season noise with the short term acquisition of Robinho together with wonder kid Neymar.

In Rio we have Botafogo, Fluminense, current champions Flamengo and Vasco da Gama, who have been newly re-instated with their top flight status following the chaos and collapse of the last few seasons. Sao Paolo offers us Corinthians, Palmeiras and, of course, Sao Paolo. Also promoted from Serie B this season are Ceará, this club based close to the north-eastern tip of Brazil will have to travel the furthest this season and I expect this will contribute to poor away form. They will need to pick up plenty of points at home if they are to have a chance of survival.

As well as Robinho, European followers may be interested in the progress of some other former stars who have returned home after reaching the peaks of European competition. Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos are plying their trade for Corinthians while Flamengo have Adriano and Vagner Love on their books.

Corinthians are in their centenary year but have already been eliminated from the Libertadores, a competition they have never won, and so will have to concentrate on the league in order to crown their birthday with a trophy. They began the campaign in a steady fashion, Ronaldo scored the winner against Atletico Paranaense from the penalty spot. Meanwhile champions Flamengo were held to a 1-1 draw with Sao Paolo and Santos fought out a 3-3 draw with the once great Botafogo.

There are still four Brazilian sides left in the Libertadores at the Quarter final stage. Past form has told us that sides that progress in the continental tournament struggle tremendously to battle on two fronts and therefore we can expect these sides league form to take a hit.

Spurs reach brink of the promised land

On Wednesday night half of North London rejoiced, finally the big four had been broken, at last Tottenham had reached the pinnacle of European competition. If they finish fourth on Sunday, which seems the likely outcome, this euphoria is rather premature. If Arsenal get at least a point at home to a Fulham side who will have their eyes firmly set on their Europa League final the following Wednesday then spurs will need to break records to finish third and avoid having to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League.

Before Michel Platini decided that the Champions League should be for Champions this stage of the competition would have been a much simpler affair. Tottenham may have been seeded against the Finnish or Slovakian champions, instead they will enter the perilous depths of an unseeded draw.

Lower placed banana skins

Looking around Europe as championships across the continent are drawing to a close there are plenty of banana skins for Harry Redknapp’s men to slip on. Some of the bigger sides who we will expect to come through from the third qualifying round include the likes of Zenit St. Petersburg, Celtic, Dynamo Kyiv, Ajax and most likely Sporting Braga.

Ajax have been rather unfortunate to only have finished runners-up in the Eredivisie, they finished just 1 point behind Steve McClaren’s FC Twente side. They have been on fire this season scoring 106 goals and conceding a paltry 20 only 4 of which have been let in at home. Going to Amsterdam to face a front line including Marco Pantelic and Luis Suarez and midfielder bruiser Demy de Zeeuw could be a difficult proposition despite Ajax’s poor showing in the Europa League in the season just gone.

The biggest positive about having to face one of these sides is that despite their good league form, the leagues themselves are of a poor general standard. For example, in Portugal the gap between 1st place and 4th going into the final game this weekend is almost 30 points. These sides do not face quality opposition on a weekly basis and so we mustn’t blow statistics such as Ajax’s goal difference out of proportion and out of context.

Play off round

Many of the sides mentioned above will still be expected to progress to the play off round. Together with Tottenham and best placed teams from Europe’s big 5 they will play off to enter the group stage. All 5 of these positions are yet to be decided with stiff competition still in place in most of these top leagues.

In France Ligue 1 has 2 more rounds to go, but as it stands the 3rd placed qualifier could be one of Lille, Auxerre, Lyon or Montpellier. We have seen Lyon do very well in the competition this season and it appears their league form has suffered due to this. Lille made life difficult for Liverpool earlier on this season so are no pushovers themselves. Montpellier were promoted last season from Ligue 2 and a Champions League place would be an astonishing achievement.

The race for 4th in La Liga is a straight two horse race over the last 2 games between Seville and RCD Mallorca. Sevilla are the incumbent at the moment but will host Barcelona tonight while Mallorca make the long trip to La Coruna before hosting Espanyol, who should be safe, in their final game. Seville have form in Europe and would provide tough opposition.

In Germany, Werder Bremen seem the most likely to take third spot with Leverkusen completely off the boil after their 24 match unbeaten run earlier this season. Italy appear to be offering the strongest opposition in the draw, one of Palermo, Sampdoria or even Milan who have fallen away toward the end of the season.

Remember Villarreal

In August 2005 Everton found themselves in exactly the same position as Tottenham do now. They were drawn against Villarreal losing 2-1 in both legs and 4-2 on aggregate. The goals that put Everton to the sword were scored by Luciano Figueroa (2), Diego Forlan and Juan Pablo Sorin. The next morning Everton still had European football to look forward to in the form of the Uefa cup but this must have been a bitter pill to swallow after pipping rivals Liverpool to 4th spot.

Some light entertainment and a disgusting punt

To start off with everyone enjoys a good laugh, and what could be better than a laugh at the expense of an MLS striker? That’s right, nothing! Against the LA Galaxy a couple of Saturday’s ago the Kansas City Wizards striker, Kei Kamara, managed to miss a ball bouncing on the line of an open goal, slipped and fell over pushing the ball in inadvertently with his upper arm. He even had the cheek to get up and try to argue with the referee afterward and claim the goal.

Roma fail to exert revenge

Following the shambles that occurred at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday night there was plenty of reaction and speculation that Roma would use the Coppa Italia final to exert revenge on Inter. Mourinho had already made it clear in Tuesday’s press conference that he did not consider the competition the mickey mouse cup that it has become in recent years where top sides play their reserves. You can see some brief highlights of the game here.

Inter lost Wesley Sneijder to an injury in the 4th minute but no information has been forthcoming regarding the state of the dutch attacking midfielder. I hope for the sake of the World Cup that he will be fit, not to mention that the Champions League final will be a much duller affair without him pulling strings in the Inter midfield. Diego Milito scored the winner for Inter towards the end of the first half.

Late on tempers flared and Mario Balotelli, on for Sneijder, took an outrageous booting from Francesco Totti. The referee gave Totti a red card, the minimum that the incident deserved. If Francesco does go to the World Cup with Italy we can only hope that there is no repeat of this disgusting attitude. It brings back memories of the incident in the group stages of Euro 2004 where he was banned for spitting at Christian Poulsen in the 0-0 draw with Denmark.

Futile Lazio throw European football community in uproar

Following my prediction that professionalism would prevail and that fans would have no say whatsoever in the outcome of the game at the Stadio Olimpico on Sunday night, the complete opposite was quite apparent. Lazio started the game well and kept Inter at bay, mostly down to the almost superhuman efforts of Fernando Muslera in goal.

Edy Reja fielded Lazio’s usual 3-5-2 formation with the wing backs dropping into a 5 man back line when they didn’t have the ball. The 3 man back line was caught out time and time again by balls over the top to Eto’o on the right. The goal came just before half time from the unlikely goal machine, Walter Samuel.

It is always a blow to concede just before half time but when your home fans celebrate the goal as much the away fans it must be a very strange environment to find yourself in. The Lazio ultras in the Curva Nord compounded their wild celebrations with a blatant attack of sarcasm toward Roma and their fans by unveiling a banner that read ‘Oh noooooo’. In the Italian press this morning the Roman fans have hit back by calling Lazio the third Milanese club and vowing to show no mercy when they meet Inter on Wednesday in the final of the Coppa Italia.

It must have been difficult for the players to react in such an environment where there are no fans in the stadium cheering you on. In this age of mercenary style transfers there are no truly iconic fan-players left in this Lazio side, they can be excused from throwing the game through anti-Roma sentiment.  They cannot be excused however for not playing to their full potential.

Lippi announces 29 man boot camp squad

Marcello Lippi has finally announced his squad for the 2 day boot camp just outside of Rome. There are no real surprises in the squad. Lippi appears to have ignored pressure to include players such as Miccoli and Amauri and has chosen a squad of players with experience and some younger players who have performed superbly all season.

Goalkeepers: Buffon (Juventus), De Sanctis (Napoli), Marchetti (Cagliari), Sirigu (Palermo).

Defenders: B occhetti, Criscito (Genoa), Bonucci (Bari), Cannavaro, Chiellini, Grosso, Legrottaglie, Zambrotta (Juventus), Cassani (Palermo), Maggio (Napoli).

Midfielders: Camoranesi, Candreva,  Marchisio (Juventus), Cossu (Cagliari), Gattuso, Pirlo (A.C. Milan), Montolivo (Fiorentina), Palombo (Sampdoria), Pepe (Udinese).

Strikers: Borriello (A.C. Milan), Di Natale (Udinese), Gilardino (Fiorentina), Iaquinta (Juventus), Pazzini (Sampdoria), Quagliarella (Napoli).

Lippi has ignored Roma and Inter players who are taking part in Wednesday night’s final of the Coppa Italia. He has already stated that he has most of his squad decided and just wants to have a look to finalise the last 3-4 players. This will almost certainly be aimed towards the more inexperienced players. The head coach had already put his views forward regarding his stance on taking experience rather than youth or form players.

Amauri had only just obtained citizenship in April 2010, possibly with the sole intention of getting into the national team, it seems however that he will not be going to any world cups as he is 30 years old in June. Fabrizio Miccoli is also in the autumn of his career and looks to have missed out on a trip to the World Cup finals despite his recent form of 8 goals in 6 games taking his total tally for the league season to 18. He hasn’t been called up since his move to Benfica, and it looks like Lippi has plenty of options up front as it is.

Antonio Cassano was another omission but this was no surprise to anyone, the striker has failed to muster any sort of form since the turn of the year. He has been trouble by injury and has even declared that he will too busy enjoying his June wedding to care about the World Cup in the slightest. I’m sure he’ll be enjoying plenty of cake.