But Beckham has only played 20 minutes of competitive football since June. It was more that - the fact that McClaren would call up a player who's still hurt, basically, and who is in no way match fit - rather than my usual 'Beckham sucks, Scholesy and Giggsy are still better' talk.

Becks isn't reeaally injured, he's just resting for the England game.

It's not exactly related but the call ups for the Azzurri friendly vs. Hungary next week have been announced.

Portieri: Marco Amelia (Livorno), Gianluigi Buffon (Juventus), Gianluca Curci (AS Roma)

Difensori: Andrea Barzagli (Palermo), Fabio Cannavaro (Real Madrid), Fabio Grosso (Olympique Lyon), Marco Materazzi (Inter Milan), Massimo Oddo (AC Milan), Cristian Zaccardo (Palermo), Gianluca Zambrotta (Barcelona)

Centrocampisti: Massimo Ambrosini (AC Milan), Alberto Aquilani (AS Roma), Aimo Diana (Palermo), Gennaro Gattuso (AC Milan), Angelo Palombo (Sampdoria), Andrea Pirlo (AC Milan)

Attacanti: Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus), Antonio Di Natale (Udinese), Filippo Inzaghi (AC Milan), Fabio Quagliarella (Udinese), Luca Toni (Bayern Munich).

Try harder Gila!!

If Gila doesn't end up in the top 10 scorers list, I'm really gonna lose hope for him.

Top 10? That's not good enough for a £18m striker...

Pfff....on Wednesday is the biggest match in the world of football. Germany vs England, and half a dozen regular players of us are injured. Ballack, Frings, Klose, Schweinsteiger, Jansen, Borowski. But we have Gonzo Castro an David Odonkor

Don't worry, it's only England you are playing against

[hiding from Kurt]

You mean it's only McLaren Germany're playing against. He'll find a way to win it for you.

Actually big mac you're right. Gila ought to end up much further up. But I'm presuming that R99 and Pippo will start as first choice for us, and with the advent of Pato, well Gila won't be playing as much as he did last season.

But if he does, he'll need a top 5 finish for sure.

I really wouldn't be worrying if I were you. We're missing a few players as well, most noteably Rooney and Gerrard. McLaren has no idea when it comes to a National Team, I think you'll win, doing it comfortabley.

Yep, it will be embarassing for us as it has been for years, as long as they don't beat us 1-5 I'm happy

Haha I used to have a Tshit, from GAP .. It had that score printed on it

Won't happen this time....we have no strikers besides Kuranyi as everyone else is injured. Our 2 best midfielders are out as well, as our best winger Schweinsteiger is. Too bad that only the B-Teams are playing such an important match in New Wembley.


Well...at least a german player scored the last official goal in the old Wembley

I didn't know what it meant at the time

Good luck on ur game with England

Such an important match? Please, it's a friendly to line our FA's pockets...

We have striker problems as well, no Rooney, no Johnson, no Bent, Owen's only just started playing (wasn't involved in pre-season) and Crouch will be suspended for our qualifiers so there would be no point playing him.

Either way, it's a friendly, just another pointless international that will make no difference to our actual qualifiers

Yep, I don't see the point of it one bit. We're just going to get embarassed and make the NT and McLaren look even worse than they actually are, what a way to rock a teams confidence before two huge games.

Ever heard of team unity!?

Not necessarily applicable but the Azzurrini beat the Baby Frogs today, 2-1.

Dessena and Rossi with the goals.

I think this is why Wenger has no English players in his team. If he really thinks Walcott is good enough for England, he obviously knows nothing about our players. I'm beginning to wonder who's more of an idiot, him of McLaren, it's a really close call.

Uhoh. Hopefully this is just a minor thing.

BUDAPEST - Durante l'allenamento di rifinitura allo stadio 'Puskas' di Budapest, dove questa sera l'Italia affrontera' l'Ungheria in un'amichevole, Gennaro Gattuso ha accusato un problema muscolare. Il centrocampista rossonero difficilmente potra' essere schierato questa sera dal ct Roberto Donadoni.

[From Gazzetta's ticker: Rino pulled a muscle in today's morning training and is unlikely to play.]

Just push the bloody thing back in ( ), we need you!!!

Well thank Paolo for Emerson then. Him over Brocchi anyday. Not to doubt Brocchi's dedication though.

[Something for Kurt.]

Yesterday there was a friendly between the France A side and the Slovakia A side. The game ended in a 1-1 draw.

The most popular chant among the Slovak fans? 'Materazzi, Materazzi'.

GOAL Armenia!

11' Armenia 1-0 Portugal

The pitch is like underconstrution but still... shame.

Cristiano thinks he's playing with his friends or in a Joga Bonito ad. Idiot.

Petit not playing... our best DMC. Grande Scolari!

LOL. Goal Cristiano. 1-1.

Gotta see this goal. You guys HAVE TO see it. Total humiliation to the Armenia keeper.

The non-fickle world of football

He plays on the left,
He plays on the right,
That boy Ronaldo,
Makes England look Sh*te.

Guess you know that song.

Yeah obviously, pity it could be sung to any foreigner in the EPL and would still probably be true

TBH I only noticed it was to Ronaldo in the end of last season or so. I thought it was some kind of insult or so to the Liverpool's Kop song "We won it 5 times". Didn't get what they were shouting.

Yeah I forgot United fans aren't English fans they support Brazil

They do since they bought Anderson. Until then Brazil NT was "shite".

Anyway, I hate'em all.

54' still 1-1 in Armenia. Tiago, new Juventus player, is a very good player but so slow... geez. Even worse than Seedorf.

FT 1-1. Shame.

Playing like this it's better not to qualify for the EURO.

It's only friendly. England has been playing like this the whole qualification campaign

No. It was not a friendly.

Yikes at the result, Porty. wtf happened?

Prima-donna attitude, bad pitch, Deco in super-bad form, Cristiano playing around, Quaresma a disaster, Tiago slow as hell, etc...

Oops

You are goona qualify anyway

!! Sorry...

Portugal I was there .

Ronaldo was really bad, though scored, but overall he was busy with some useless tricks. Our defenders acted sh!ty at that moment, and the keeper couldn't do much.
Overall Portugal was lucky not losing.

I'm very very surprizes, but it's already third game we play really good,

2 win over kazakhstan and poland and now draw with Portugal, I can say I'm happy

Congratulations Gulliver, that's an awesome result for your Armenia.

I think it shows that very small teams can cause an upset, if a big team doesn't go in with the right attitude, a shock is on the cards.

Hehe....the history of New Wembley beginns just like it ended. With England losing against us
Tbh we were lucky to win. England missed the open goal more than once, and Lehmann really did a good job. I don't care what he plays like for Arsenal, in the NT he's always a top keeper. In total contrast to Robinson...that guy really is one joke of a keeper. The equalizer was a gift by him, great cross by Schneider though. Panders goal was great....what a hammer !
Anyway, the Euro is next year and we have to be in top form by then as we need a big title after we haven't won one in 12 years by then

A whole 12 years!? How do you live with yourself!?

We did miss a few poor chances, but we also got lucky a few times, like Kuranyi's miss-hit lob, that would have been a certain goal if he connected with it properly. I think all Germany-England matches should be played in Munich, since our record is awful at home!


We haven't been that bad to be honest. We've only lost 1, we've only conceeded in one game, 6 cleen sheets so far in this qualifying (Funnily enough, the same number Robinson kept for Spurs the whole of last season, why do peopple rate him!?). We did play well against Germany, admittedly they missed big players, but as did we. I'm more confident about the Israel/Russia games now as the performance was decent, on any other day we could have won that game.

This Richardson (that was his name wasn't it?) guy on the right was Englands best IMO. But you guys really need to find a good goalie somewhere...Robbo is pathetic. And a good poacher. With that England would be much more competative IMO.

Micah Ricahrds I think you're talking about, plays right back.

Yes, Robinson's not very good at all. In the past 20 years we've had more reliable guys like Shilton and Seaman, Robinson's nowhere near close to them. We used to have tonnes of guys that could stick the ball in the net, a few years ago we had so many that Ian Wright couldn't even make the England squad for World Cups! Now we have Theo Walcott? What a joke.

Fortunately for you, Germany have been blessed with real talent all over the pitch since.. well, as long as I remember. Damn you!

IMO we had a lot of cr@py teams in the 90ies, full of oldies like Klinsmann, Völler, Möller and all the other heros that won the 1990 WC. I don't even wan't to think of the Euro 2000, with the 39yo Lothar Matthäus. Good....even in 2004 we had a team almost without promising youngsters. This is the first time since 1990 IMO that we have more than one good player under 25. Kuranyi, Pander, Jansen, Gomez etc. ....very good team. Here in Germany everyone thinks that we're top favorites to win the Euro next year asthe teams winning and winning under Löw. We'll see....last year everyone thought we'd win the WC after we won against Argentina...didn't happen

Pander seems to be a good defender. Now I get all those Real Madrid rumours...

Lucky guy to be in the stadium (full, wasn't it?)

Congrats with the result and good luck in the rest of the qualifying matches.

Hell, what are you talking about? Germany in 2004 had Lahm, Kuranyi, Poldi, Schwein, etc. The 2006 success was born at the Euro 04. It was full of promising youngsters.

Also, Andi Möller did great things till the late 90ties,..this Schalke transfer, I`ll never forget,..

Germany is one of the favorites, sure, and I`d be glad to see them lifting the trophy.

As for Pander...really overrated. A great free-kick expert, makes superb shots, but isn`t mobile enough and he defense can be really poor sometimes.