World cup news

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Germany

 

Germany offer 300,000 euro a man for World Cup glory

BERLIN, June 5, 2006 (AFP) - Germany players have been handed a massive cash incentive to lift the World Cup on home soil with a record 300,000 euro bonus on offer for each player, the German Football Federation said Monday.

The amount is the biggest in German football history and is more than three times the 92,000 euro purse the team would have collected for winning the trophy four years ago. Germany lost 2-0 to Brazil in the final.

"It is fully justified. The national team is the main financial contributor to the German Football Federation (DFB) so all players should get their share," said national coach Jurgen Klinsmann.

Klinsmann, a World Cup winner with West Germany in 1990, will reportedly pick up a cool one million euros should Germany lift the trophy on July 9.

The bonus scheme does not start until the quarter-finals of the competition with German players picking up 50,000 euros for reaching the last eight.

That amount rises to 100,000 euros for a semi-final spot and 150,000 euros for reaching the final.

Germany open the World Cup on Friday against Costa Rica in Munich before taking on Poland on June 14 and Ecuador six days later.

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Czech Republic

 

Czech's boosted by return of Rosicky

PRAGUE, June 5, 2006 (AFP) - Czech playmaker Tomas Rosicky announced Monday that he has recovered from the thigh injury troubling him since the end of May and said is ready for the World Cup finals.

"It seems ok. Tuesday I will start to train with the other guys," said Rosicky, who recently signed for Arsenal from Borussia Dortmund.

"I have no problems now," he insisted.

The 25-year-old was injured in a warm-up match against Saudie Arabia on May 26 and was forced to sit out Saturday's final preparation match against Trinidad and Tobago.

The Czech Republic start their World Cup campaign against USA on June 12 in Group E before facing Ghana on June 17 and Italy five days later.

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Ecuador

 

Fans flock to watch Ecuador train

BAD KISSINGEN, Germany, June 5, 2006 (AFP) - Around 2,000 fans turned out to watch Ecuador's first open training session here on Monday and treated the players to a show of folk dancing and singing.

Captain Ivan Hurtado and coach Luis Suarez spent an hour signing autographs before returning to the training session.

Ecuador are in World Cup Group A with hosts Germany, Costa Rica and Poland, against whom they play their first match on Friday.

[JeremyJacobs]

At this point, I am tempted to sing " Two World Wars, one World Cup " but that could be considered intemperate of me.

[Cookie]

I'm sure you are able to show self control JJ! Ha!

[seasidesteve]

i dont think they paid their soldiers quite as much JJ

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Holland

 

With an doubt already cast over midfielder Rafael van der Vaart, Dutch coach Marco van Basten is now sweating over three more of his World Cup squad after the trio were injured in a bad-tempered friendly against Australia on Sunday.

 

Midfielder Philip Cocu limped off with a thigh strain just before the interval, Wesley Sneijder and defender Giovanni van Bronckhorst sustained ankle injuries in the second half.

 

Van Bronckhorst was hurt in a challenge with Luke Wilkshire.

 

Both Cocu and van Bronckhorst's injuries are not said to be serious there seems to be a great deal more concern over the state of Sneijder.

 

"Sneijder is limping and his ankle is strapped up," explained van Basten.

 

"We'll have to wait 24 hours to find out how serious it is. We have to wait and see how it develops."

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Australia tougher than Croatia:

 

Japan's Nakamura

 

TOKYO, June 6, 2006 (AFP) - Japan's playmaker Shunsuke Nakamura believes unheralded Australia will prove tougher opponents than European powerhouses Croatia in their World Cup group led by five-time champions Brazil.

"I think the Australians are similar to Japan (in style) and perhaps because of that it will make them the most difficult team for us to play against," the Celtic midfielder said ahead of Japan's opener against the Socceroos on Monday.

Australia's defensive midfielder Vince Grella is "good on the ball and plays up front," Nakamure said in an interview with Japan's Kyodo news agency published on Tuesday.

Italy-based midfielder Marco Bresciano will also be "buzzing around causing problems," said Nakamura, whose left-footed striking and pin-point passes helped Celtic win the Scottish Premiership in his first year at the club.

"I think it will be easier for us against Croatia," Nakamura said. "Croatia play two up front and tend to sit back a bit and I think it will be easier for us to cope with them."

But Nakamura, who commands Japan's solid midfield with Bolton's Hidetoshi Nakata playing another key role, saw little chance for Japan to beat five-time champions Brazil in their last first-round match.

Brazil were coasting when they drew 2-2 with Japan at the first round of the Confederations Cup in Germany a year ago, he said.

"The Confederations Cup was no real indicator of what Brazil are capable of. They were just toying with us and Ronaldinho will be far more dangerous," said Nakamura, who scored one goal and set up another in that clash.

"Adriano was off color when he played against us but then went and scored those goals against Argentina in the final" won by Brazil, he said.

Nakamura said if Brazil have already secured a berth in the knockout stages before the Japan match on June 22 it would "give us a better chance because they will probably field a weakened team."

Australia, playing in their first World Cup finals in 32 years, are also rated highly by former Yugoslavia coach Ivica Osim, who has been managing J-League club JEF United Chiba for three years.

"It won't be easy to throw down Australia. They are such a good team," said Osim, 64, who guided the former Yugoslavia to a World Cup quaterfinal in 1990 and took Austria's SK Sturm Graz into the Champions League three times.

He said there was nothing to choose between Australia and the fancied Dutch

side who met in Rotterdam on Sunday.

"I didn't see any gap between the two sides," he told the Japanese media on Monday.

Osim said Australia had "good runners, good tactics and high individual skills" as well as height advantage over Japan.

He also noted that Dutch coach Guus Hiddink, who led South Korea to the semi-finals in 2002, had led Australia successfully through the tough qualifying rounds for Germany 2006 only a few months after taking the helm.

"Australian players have proven to be highly skilled as they could organize themselves as soon as the coach arrived," he said.

[seasidesteve]

i think hes had too much sushi

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Brazil

 

PELE TIPS BRAZIL TO STRUGGLE

 

Mon 5th Jun 2006

A TRIO of former Brazil World Cup greats led by Pele has gone against public opinion by declaring the defending champion will struggle to make the final at Germany 2006. Pele, Tostao and Falcao all the current Brazil side is not invincible and must improve if it is to claim a record sixth title.

 

Brazil secured a comfortable 4-0 win over New Zealand in its final warm-up game this morning, but even coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has begun to demand an improvement from his superstars, who play Australia in Munich on June 18.

 

While a 10-man Australia scored an encouraging 1-1 draw with the Netherlands in its friendly match overnight, the Socceroos' other Group F opponents Japan struggled in a tough 1-0 draw with lowly Malta while Croatia beat a Croatian All-Star side 5-0.

 

Brazil is tipped to cruise through the group, but the old guard is not so sure.

 

Pele has said his 1970 World Cup-winning side would beat today's model, and his former attacking partner Tostao wouldn't be surprised if Brazil was eliminated early.

 

"The team has an incredible potential," Tostao, who helped Brazil win its third World Cup in 1970 in Mexico, said.

 

"But right now, it's not that much better than the other teams (in Group F). It wouldn't be a surprise if it was eliminated.

 

"The differential for this team is that it has three spectacular players in Ronaldinho, Kaka and Ronaldo. "But if they have bad days, the rest of the team is normal, in the same level as the others."

 

Falcao, a star at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups, also agreed Brazil still has to improve before being labelled "better than the others".

 

"Brazil still hasn't been able to put a team together," Falcao said.

 

Brazil only led the All Whites in Geneva 2-0 with five minutes left following goals to Ronaldo and Adriano, before late strikes by Kaka in the 85th minute and Juninho in injury-time.

 

"We will need to be better than that at the World Cup," coach Parreira said.

 

"We have things to improve including the ball out of defence and the co-ordination of the four men up front (Ronaldo, Kaka, Adriano and Ronaldinho)."

 

Parreira claimed the New Zealand game was important because the Kiwis had a similar style to Australia.

 

In Dusseldorf, Keiji Tamada scored his first international goal for 18 months to lead Japan which was forced to make three changes from the side which drew 2-2 with Germany last week.

 

Frontline forwards Naohiro Takahara, Atsushi Yanagisawa and wing back Akira Kaji were all missing from Japan's final warm up game.

 

Japan's coach Zico, also a former Brazil World Cup star, was frustrated by his team's lack of penetration and will be anxious to have Takahara and Yanagisawa fit for the Group F opener with the Socceroos in Kaiserslautern on June 12.

 

"We were poor," Zico said. "Hopefully we've got it out of our system now because time is getting tight.

 

"It's a bit of a step back. We didn't have the right mindset, perhaps because we knew we were playing a weaker side."

 

Croatia fielded a second string side for its match with a team of Croatian professionals in , the day after its first-choice XI lost 1-0 to Poland.

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Over 28 and out of the Cup

6 June 2006

by FIFAworldcup.co

 

Those who believe in the power of statistics combined with the value of youth can strike from their list of potential 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ winners the following teams: Brazil, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Sweden, Portugal, Serbia and Montenegro, USA, Australia, Croatia, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The reason? In none of the last ten FIFA World Cup competitions have the winners possessed a squad with an average age of more than 28 – the 'weakness' of all those teams listed above.

 

You have to go all the way back to Brazil's champions of 44 years ago to find a winning squad with an average age of more than 28. At Chile 1962 the Seleção weighed in at an average of 30 years and one month, a staggering 17 months older on average than the next oldest squad.

 

Since then the average age of the winning squads has been: England (27/01); Brazil (25/02); Germany (27/03); Argentina (26/03); Italy (27/04); Argentina (26/10); Germany (27/09); Brazil (27/11); France (27/04) and Brazil (26/09).

 

Interestingly the average age of those ten winners comes out at 26/11 which is exactly the average of the Germany squad – and no other team - this time. It is also worth noting that the losing finalists are normally not too far away from the winners in terms of average ages. The last three defeated teams show: Germany (28/02); Brazil (27/11); Italy (28).

 

In this competition Ghana have the youngest squad at 25/02 while fellow newcomers Trinidad and Tobago are the 'old men' of the party. Their squad registers a creaky 29/05.

 

The youngest player is England rookie Theo Walcott who will be just 17 years and 85 days old when the tournament begins on 9 June. If he hits the back of the net the Arsenal striker will become the youngest-ever goalscorer at a FIFA World Cup.

The oldest participant is Tunisia goalkeeper Ali Boumnijel who was born three months before England lifted the Jules Rimet trophy in 1966 and stands fifth in the all-time list of oldest players to take part in a FIFA World Cup, following in the footsteps of such greats as Roger Milla (Cameroon), Pat Jennings (Northern Ireland), Peter Shilton (England) and Dino Zoff (Italy).

 

The overall average age of the players taking part in the Germany showpiece is 27/05. Remarkably that figure has scarcely changed over recent tournaments. Four years ago it was 27/06 as it was in 1998. In 1994 it was just one month less at 27/05.

 

The Japan squad this time feature the smallest gap between their youngest and oldest players – just eight years and two months. England have the largest age gap (18 years and seven months), perhaps no surprise given the Walcott factor and the presence of David James who turns 36 on 1 August.

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Wed 7th Jun 2006

 

The Socceroos have survived a huge pre-World Cup scare from tiny Liechtenstein, scoring twice in the final 15 minutes to post a 3-1 friendly win in Ulm.

 

Substitute Joshua Kennedy scored in the 75th minute with a header to break a 1-1 deadlock and John Aloisi put the issue beyond doubt with Australia's third goal some seven minutes from time.

 

What was expected to be an easy kill for Australia against a team ranked well outside the world's top 100 was anything but.

 

The Socceroos had to fight back from a goal down, going behind after defender Lucas Neill's own goal in the eighth minute.

 

Striker Mile Sterjovski got the Socceroos back on level terms after 20 minutes but the Australians could not find a way past their plucky opponents despite many chances.

 

Liechtenstein, with a population of just 33,000, also had its chances particularly in the opening ten minutes of the second half.

 

The largely unimpressive performance will give Australia plenty to think about before its World Cup opener against Japan on Monday.

 

One of the few bright spots was the impressive performance from Harry Kewell who played for an hour before being substituted.

 

Socceroos coach Guus Hiddink wasn't surprised his team lacked sharpness just three days after their 1-1 draw against the Netherlands in Rotterdam.

 

"It is normal that we don't play as well as we did over there, there was a bit of a lack of concentration and we can not afford to make those types of mistakes," he told SBS.

 

Hiddink felt his men steadily improved as the match wore on.

 

"Well after that sloppy period in the beginning, we started to build up a little more pace in the second half especially with some changes on the left side and we went somewhat better," he said.

 

The Dutch mentor was heartened by Kewell's continuing recovery from a groin injury but felt the Liverpool star must improve before meeting Japan.

 

"We planned to play him an hour so he can practice again tomorrow and the day after so I hope bit by bit he recovers his strength because you need to be fit," Hiddink said.

 

"He did a rather good job but still has to find another 20 to 30 per cent more strength."

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Croatia's squad stricken by virus

8 June 2006

 

Croatia's football squad have been stricken by a mysterious virus since their arrival last week at their base in Bad Bruckenau, team officials said on Thursday.

 

Doctors could not determine the cause of the infection which had stricken most of the squad - Darijo Simic, Ivica Olic, Bosko Balaban, Dado Prso, Stjepan Tomas, Anthony Seric and Joey Didulica.

 

The last victim of the virus, from which his team-mates have barely recovered, was defender Darijo Srna reporting symptoms of nausea, high fever and headache.

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Roo sue row

 

THE FA have told the doctor who saved Wayne Rooney’s World Cup: We’ll pick up the tab if you get sued.

 

Independent expert Professor Angus Wallace at first refused to give the England star the all-clear as he feared he could be hit with a multi-million pound insurance claim.

 

He has £5m negligence cover but thought he could be ruined if sued for far more by Manchester United or Rooney or both.

 

United and England rowed for SEVEN hours over Roo’s fitness and the deadlock was only broken after the FA told Prof Wallace THEY would accept liability.

 

The bust-up between United and England over Rooney had escalated to the extent Old Trafford chief executive David Gill and his FA counterpart Brian Barwick also got involved.

 

There was a heated four-letter slanging match in a conference call which included United boss Alex Ferguson and Sven Goran Eriksson.

 

But in the end, England won the battle after Professor Wallace’s verdict.