Yep, they play England at Wembley.

How's Freddie doing, Kurt?

Should be interesting to see how we've progressed under Capello. Under the clown we'd have lost this one.

Ahead of schedule I believe. Initially the doctors said February, now it's expected to be around December time as he's healing up well. Gotta stay in a cast for a few months, then just get football fit. Can't wait to see him back!

Here are Italy's call ups:

Amelia (Palermo), Buffon (Juventus)
Barzagli (Wolfsburg), Bonera (Milan), Cassetti (Roma), Chiellini (Juventus), Dossena (Liverpool), Grosso (Olympic Lione), Zambrotta (Milan)
Aquilani (Roma) Camoranesi (Juventus), De Rossi (Roma), Gattuso (Milan), Palombo (Sampdoria), Perrotta (Roma), Pirlo (Milan)
Del Piero (Juventus), Di Natale (Udinese), Gilardino(Fiorentina), Iaquinta (Juventus).

You beat me to it! Dossena was called up... interesting... he's pretty good. I wish we got him instead of liverpool...

Either way, good call up... though I'd drop Barzagli. Glad to see Bonera called up too...

But the best part of it is this: NO INTER REPRESENTATION. LOL!!

No Panucci and No Cassano. The Panucci one doesn't surprise me as he and Lippi don't like each other much. The Cassano one does, just a touch.

I would imagine that a couple of guys from the U21/U23 team may get called up for the next round (eg Giovinco, Rossi, Montolivo).

It's just a friendly. I think that he's testing out other players to see how they work out with each other. Cassano I'm confident will get the call up later on. He did manage to keep his temper under control in the Euro Cup... I think he's improving dramatically in that regards. And his performance I hear against Siena in that friendly was quite good.

I'm not a big Cassano fan, to be honest. Yes, he did manage to behave during the Euros, but...I'm not convinced he's put his tantrums behind him. He's a gifted player but he worries me so I'm not particularly disappointed to see him omitted from the callup list.

It's nice to see some new-ish guys get called up (Dossena, Bonera, etc).

Here are England's call ups:

Goalkeepers: David James (Portsmouth), Paul Robinson (Blackburn), Joe Hart (Manchester City)

Defenders: Wayne Bridge (Chelsea), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), John Terry (Chelsea), Wes Brown (Manchester United), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Glen Johnson (Portsmouth), Jonathan Woodgate (Tottenham), Matthew Upson (West Ham)

Midfielders: Gareth Barry (Aston Villa), David Bentley (Tottenham), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), David Beckham (Los Angeles Galaxy), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Michael Carrick (Manchester United), Stewart Downing (Middlesbrough)

Strikers: Jermain Defoe (Portsmouth), Emile Heskey (Wigan), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Theo Walcott (Arsenal)

giovinco as well.

one thing i thgouth we lacked at the euro was creativity down the wings. it's like the whole team was waiting for pirlo to make a killer pass to toni, and everyone else just watched.

No Ashley Young? You've got to be kidding me.. It seems like Capello is making the same mistakes that McClaren made, picking the players who have the bigger names, rather than the ones in form. Giw Stewart Downing, David Bentley and David Beckham get picked.. but no Ashley Young baffles me! When Cristiano Ronaldo is the only better winger in the league than you, I think you should be playing international football.

It seems like his previous, he's picking players on name (Beckham, Heskey) and on hype (Bentley, Walcott, Woodgate) rather than on performances (Young, Lescott).

Marcello Lippi has called up Legrottaglie in place of the injured Chiellini.

Not at all. Only Donadoni was crazy enough to take that lunatic with him! And that's the only significant mistake I believe he made.

In the end it wasn't Cassano who turned out to be a mistake. It was Toni. He should have taken pippo instead.

Pippo?

Second mistake - relations with players who turned out to be crucial. Nesta and Totti, but also Pippo.

But the biggest mistake is that no one in his team knew his exact position and role. Buffon started as captain, then he lost the armband, then he got it back. Barzagli-Matrix started (altough he was warned), then he rotated to Panucci-Chiellini (who at that time rarely played together). No one knew his startin eleven. No one knew his sheme. And that's the worst thing a NT manager can do IMO. And that's why I belive Carlo could become a very successfull NT coach. He's the exact opposite.


Toni wan't a mistake. It was a risk playing everything you got on one card.

Yeah except that Cassano is not a player that should be in a team that wants to win... Lippi knows that, I'd be very surprised if Cassano was picked again while Lippi's in charge.


No Nesta, No Cannavaro! What should he do? Crap a couple of WC defenders out of his ***???

+1 He was cramped for options, gotta give the man that. Particularly after the retirement of both Nesta and Totti. Not to mention the injury absence of Cannavaro. Someone like Lippi would have done marginally better, not much, in my opinion.

Oddly enough, the Panucci-Chiellini CB pairing was..not all that bad, IMO.
--

The Azzurri are have just started a training session at Coverciano today. It'll be interesting to see how Lippi v2 does.

(Programming note: GolTV in the US is showing the Italy-Austria game on tape delay starting at 5pm Wednesday).

He could at least give it a try.

He shouldn't have come back, in my honest opinion. Not very smart of him. If things take a turn for the worse, he'll taint his legacy quite badly. I'd not have come back if I were him, keeping the state of the NT in mind. It's a very brave (and somewhat stupid) decision. Let's wait and see how it turns out.

Yes it will. But he won the WC... he can't do any better and I doubt he can repeat that... still, kudos to him for taking the risk!


Who says he didn't?

So how's Capello doing ? What is the general opinion of him ? considering the qualifiers are right around the corner.

Ohdear. Camoranesi and Iaquinta are doubts for the game. They both have minor injuries.

There's one other absence from the Azzurri squad that I just now noticed: Luca Toni is not in evidence. He's just coming off of injury and is due to play this weekend for Bayern.

In other NT-related news, Adrian Mutu was hurt in training with Romania's NT. He'll have exams today to see the extent of the injury (the article didn't say which body part was hurt).

(from tuttomercatoweb, quoting Marcello Lippi)


['I wanted to return to relive certain sensations and emotions and I wanted to do it in this environment. I can therefore say that if I player tells me he wants to play in a certain position, I won't call him up again.' said Azzurri coach Marcello Lippi on the eve of the friendly against Austria.]

Hope Del Piero is listening.

Del Piero, in my personal opinion, is done for. I'd be very surprised if he gets called up for the World Cup 2010, just because of the fact that there are quite a few young players coming up who are vying to break into the XI. Still Piero is Piero, too much of a quality player. And to think he didn't get his fair chance in the Azurri NT. They always preferred Totti to him in the starting lineup.

He's from the era of Nesta, Totti, Inzaghi, Cannavaro - if they don't last till then, I think he too won't.

Gotta love Satellite tv..

The England game is 20 minutes in and I've seen 5 seconds.. in that 5 seconds I saw Baros score a goal, the other 19:58 I got to see a blue screen saying "No satellite signal being received". Although, that's probably better than watching a Capello coached team.

True...

Popping in briefly. Joe Cole OG gives Czechs the lead? And...sounds like Keystone Kops comedy hour between Italy and Austria (where Austria lead 2-0). Oy.

EDIT: oops, Cashley OG, not Joe OG.

HT Italy 1 - 2 Austria.

Italy's goal by Gilardino at the end of the half.

Slovakia 0-1 Greece. Gekas '61

And Rino is hurt?

Gekas!

Yup But it doesn't seem to be very hard,he goes out of the pitch himself

Queiroz first XI on the Portuguese NT:


----------------H.Almeida-----------
-Simao------------------------Nani-
-----------Deco--C.Martins---------
---------------R.Meireles------------
Antunes-Carvalho-Pepe-Bosingwa
----------------Quim-----------------

I view the game as more of an exercise so Lippi can see where players are at and who should be cut, etc.

By the way, yes I agree with acid previously talking about Del Piero. He's done for and he's done very little for Italy.

Wes Brown just before half time. 1-1.

I think the second goal was Barzagli's fault,he is not a NT player!

Janku, 2-1. GREAT free-kick!

He's not worth it. That will be someone who is hopefully cut.

He's on fire... and anyone can see that from recent performances... I hope any injury concerns are behind him.

Some may say he never got his fair share of chances. And I'd agree with them. Other players were always preferred ahead of him, and half the time he came on as substitute. But the truth is that the Del Piero for Juve is a completely different person than the one that plays for the NT. Or used to play.

Exactly. He picked himself up during and after the recent Euros. I can sense his confidence sitting ten thousand miles away. Maybe the arrival of Zamborghini charged him up. At any count, I hope he continues this.

YEah and those runs he made in the game against Juve really impressed me... that long distance goal... wow...

He was one of my favorite players and I knew we were lacking a great player...

Tell me is he making those charging runs against England right now?

BTW, Italy equalised. Goal through Gilardino, who I still have issues with. But he's proving me wrong already... 2-2.

Edit: Actually was it Gilardino? I read it is an own goal... I'm following that goal.com livescore rubbish thing. lol.

Janku He's definitely ready for the new season

(sorry, Kurt) JANKU!

Italian play by play says 'own goal' for the equalizer but they seem to think Zamborghini is making some good crosses.

Worth catching it on the stream, then. Though I've only got less than half an hour to spare before I have to attend to another business. Here are some links, the Justin.tv ones are working rather nice:

Italy vs Austria
England vs Czech Republic

I'm not too bothered. Losing friendly games can do as much good as they do bad, if not more for England. No matter who the manager, we pick the same team and nothing ever changes, hopefully losing games like this will make things change. Either the FA stops picking the tea, Capello grows a pair and stands up to the FA. Or we just need to change things in our set up completely. Bad times for English football, qualifying for 2010 in South Africa will be a miracle in my opinion.

My hunch feeling is that they will. What good is a World Cup without the English team? Not good.

Before I take off... I must say I hear Beckham is playing very miserably and his free kicks... well... lets just say... I could take better ones.

Seeing that you are from Los Angeles, Giancarlo, do you follow Beckham in LA Galaxy? Anyway, he's less than half the player he once was. I guess most players can't last long once they go past the third decade.

God no.

The galaxy... um... just check their last eight games. One point lol...

The galaxy makes me laugh... they defend like amateurs.

The only thing I can see different between McClarens England and Capello's England is the accent the manager has.. nothing else has changed.

2-2. Joe Cole in the 92nd minute. You just saved Capello's @ss my friend.