FREE World Cup 2010 Wall Chart

I’ve been looking around for a decent World Cup match planner or wall chart for a while.
Usually just before a major tournament there is an abundance of places to download this kind of thing but this year there doesn’t seem to be.

The guys over at www.designandartwork.co.uk have created a great looking chart that is a lot easier to follow than the official FIFA match planner.

The chart can be downloaded from their site by clicking here.
http://www.designandartwork.co.uk/images/2010_World_Cup_Wall_Chart.pdf

Fifi 2010 Squad Lists

For those of you that are interested in these things, you can now download the full 30-man provisional squad list for every country at the World Cup in South Africa next month.

This really is only a provisional list as the each squad has to be reduces to 23 players by June 1st, at which time, every team page on the website will be updated with the full squad lists.

Not every team have submitted 30 players though. Germany only submitted 27 and North Korea have actually submitted their final 23 man squad. The key thing with the preliminary squad list is that your 23 man squad has to be picked from the players submitted at this stage and you can only replace a player if one of your squad has a serious injury prior to your first game.

Almost Interesting Facts

The youngest players named are the 18-year-olds Vincent Aboubakar of Cameroon, Christian Eriksen of Denmark and Nassim Ben Khalifa of Switzerland. The oldest players at the tournament are two goalkeepers; 39-year-old Sander Boschker from Holland and England’s David James. Lastly, of all the players at the tournament, 139 are based in England.

Download World Cup 2010 Preliminary Squad List

If you want to download the squad list click here.

The world cup – a Welsh Perspective.

For football fans it doesn’t get much better than a World Cup year.
Having a club at the Finals must be an incredible thing, I get excited enough being a neutral.

You see I’m Welsh and that means that we’ve had no team to cheer on in a major finals since 1958.
Most Welsh football fans know that we made it to the 58 finals in Sweden but most don’t quite know how we got there.

We certainly didn’t qualify and it was generally down to political differences in the Middle East that we got a chance to go at all.

Having finished second to Czechoslovakia in qualifying Group 4, the Welsh thought their chances of appearing in Sweden were over. But the golden generation of Welsh football had reckoned without the politics of the Middle East.

Egypt and Sudan had refused to play against Israel whilst Indonesia had insisted on meeting Israel on neutral ground. As a result Israel were proclaimed winners of their respective group in the Asian/African zone.

FIFA were understandably reluctant to allow a team to qualify for the World Cup finals without actually playing a match and so lots were drawn of all the second placed teams in the UEFA qualifying groups. Belgium were drawn out of the hat but they refused and so then Wales was drawn and awarded a two-legged play-off match against Israel with a place in Sweden for the winners.

Having beaten Israel 2–0 at the Ramat Gan Stadium and 2–0 at Ninian Park, Cardiff, Wales went through to the World Cup Finals for the first and, so far, only time.

The strong Welsh squad including John Charles made their mark in Sweden, drawing all the matches in their group against Hungary, Mexico, and Sweden before defeating the Hungarians in a play off match to reach the quarter-finals. There the Welsh lost 1–0 to eventual champions Brazil, with 17-year-old Pelé grabbing the only goal of the game. Pele went on to be a Legend, Brazil went on from this, there first World Cup victory, to take five in all and Wales . . . . well Wales vanished off the World Cup map forever.

The Welsh World Cup Squad 1958

No.	Pos.	Player	DoB/Age	Caps	Club
1	GK	Jack Kelsey	19 November 1929 (aged 28)		Arsenal
2	DF	Stuart Williams	9 July 1930 (aged 27)		West Bromwich Albion
3	DF	Mel Hopkins	7 November 1934 (aged 23)		Tottenham Hotspur
4	DF	Derek Sullivan	10 August 1930 (aged 27)		Cardiff City
5	MF	Mel Charles	14 May 1935 (aged 23)		Swansea Town
6	MF	Dave Bowen	7 June 1928 (aged 30)		Arsenal
7	FW	Terry Medwin	25 September 1932 (aged 25)		Tottenham Hotspur
8	FW	Ron Hewitt	21 June 1928 (aged 29)		Cardiff City
9	FW	John Charles	27 December 1931 (aged 26)		Juventus
10	FW	Ivor Allchurch	16 October 1929 (aged 28)		Swansea Town
11	FW	Cliff Jones	7 February 1935 (aged 23)		Swansea Town
12	GK	Ken Jones	2 January 1936 (aged 22)		Cardiff City
13	GK	Graham Vearncombe	28 March 1934 (aged 24)		Cardiff City
14	DF	Trevor Edwards	24 January 1937 (aged 21)		Charlton Athletic
15	DF	Colin Baker	18 December 1934 (aged 23)		Cardiff City
16	MF	Vic Crowe	31 January 1932 (aged 26)		Aston Villa
17	FW	Ken Leek	26 July 1935 (aged 22)		Leicester City
18	FW	Roy Vernon	14 April 1937 (aged 21)		Blackburn Rovers
19	FW	Colin Webster	17 July 1932 (aged 25)		Manchester United
20	MF	John Elsworthy	26 July 1931 (aged 26)		Ipswich Town
21	MF	Len Allchurch	12 September 1933 (aged 24)		Swansea Town
22	MF	Tom Baker	6 April 1934 (aged 24)		Plymouth Argyle

Despite some undoubtedly World Class players over more recent years, players like Neville Southall, Mark Hughes, Ian Rush, and Ryan Giggs, Wales just haven’t managed to seal a place at a finals.
John Toshack is certainly making progress in my opinion and Wales currently have a young team that are growing in stature.

Spain worthy winners – 2008

I wan’t exactly supporting Spain at Euro 2008 but must admit to being won over by their play in the final.

The only team who really played nice flowing football in the game thoroughly deserved the crown as champions after the 90 mins and to finally get a trophy after 44 years is a great achievement.

Torres’ goal was a superb dink over the keeper, and the German defence was abysmal to say best.

Much has been made about the Germans weakness at the back throughout the tournament but I can’t help but feel their weakness up front was even more worrying.

The only German player who came out of the game with any credit was the outstanding Schweinstiger who for me was one of the payers of the tournament.

So congrats to Spain, who also had midfielder Xavi named as player of the tournament. I can’t help that they must now also be favourites for the World Cup!

What makes a good footballing nation?

With all the uproar about no British clubs making it through to Euro 2008, I started wondering what exactly it is that makes a nation good at football.

Being from Wales I’ve grown used to having a mediocre National team who don’t qualify for major tournaments, but can more than hold there own against some of the big boys and even occasionally cause the odd shock or two.

Many of my English friends though just can’t believe that their national team is not good enough to qualify for the Euro’s. When you look on paper you’d think they’re good enough or is it just familiarity blurring our judgement? I mean if Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinand etc where really as good as we think why hasn’t a club like Barcelona, Real Madrid or Inter Milan tried to take them off abroad?

These English players are, I must admit, players I would welcome into any club I support, but just how good really are they?

I’d rather have a team of 11 good players who were willing to work hard together and play as a team than have a team of 11 excellent players who won’t give the ball to one another.
Having watched a couple of England friendlies lately it’s been quite notable that one of their brightest players David Bentley is excluded from most moves and passing sequences and even seemed to warm up and down on his own. If I were an England fan I would find it quite worrying that a man who can use both feet and work so hard at club level should be pushed out of “the click”.

It would also worry me a little that one of the teams best performers is a man who in effect plays part time football in a minor league. Of course I mean Mr beckham. I have always been a massive fan of his football. His workrate puts a lot of the younger players to shame even now and he actually looks like it means something to him to pull on the national shirt. Unfortunately when it comes to a lot of the other players who seem to think having a glamourous wife and multicoloured football boots makes them a star. Maybe I am a little unfair, but there is no doubt whatsoever that several players, more so in an England shirt than any other nation I can think off, have one eye on who they’re playing in the premier league next week than caring about the opponents in front of them at the time!

So what does make a good footballing nation? Well It’s hard to say but when premier league teams pay millions for players that are only just teens, then train any natural ability out of them until they reach an age where they are told they are not good enough, it’s unlikely we’re going to turn up the gems we once did.

Unfortunately in building the wonderful league that the premier league has become we’ve created a monster. A monster that eats up talented youngsters and spits them out, to be replaced by hard working foreign imports who will do the job for half the price.

I think the sooner the 6 plus 5 rule kicks in the better, at the moment it looks like 2012 so role on world cup 2018!! We should be in with a shout!