Soccer World Cup 

Rooney waits as England limber up

As England held their first training session on German soil, the undoubted star attraction was the man who should know in the next 24 hours if his FIFA World Cup™ dream is alive or over.
Wayne Rooney, who will fly back to Manchester to have a final scan on his fractured metatarsal on Wednesday, took on light exercises involving a little ball work and some sprinting, but nothing like the scissor kick he was pictured performing in England’s final workout before flying to Germany.



A crowd of around 500, comprising local schoolchildren and the world's media, gathered at the picturesque Mittelbergstadion set high in the vineyard-covered hills of Buhlertal, just outside England’s tournament headquarters at Baden Baden. All watched in wonder as Rooney and the squad prepared for the finals on a pitch specially prepared for England by the company supplying the turf for the new Wembley Stadium.

Rooney was reduced to onlooker status himself after taking part in the early stages of the 90-minute session, while team captain David Beckham (ankle knock) and Arsenal defender Ashley Cole (thigh strain) also skipped the more physical aspects of the workout and concentrated instead on light jogging duties with England physio Gary Lewin.

Liverpool's midfield general Steven Gerrard finished training five minutes early complaining of a stiff back, but head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson expects the trio to return to more competitive work on Wednesday, while Rooney heads to England to learn his fate.

Waiting game
Eriksson encouraged the press to be patient for just a little while longer at a media conference, though the vast majority of the questions were still, inevitably, about Rooney. Eriksson said of his star striker: "Let the specialists and the surgeons have their say. I know it's big news and he's a big football player, but let's wait."

Rooney’s Manchester United team-mate Gary Neville, who missed Korea/Japan 2002 with a broken metatarsal, urged caution over Rooney’s prospects as he said: "I was taken to the specialist thinking I would be given the all-clear but it wasn't to be and it is not always what you think. I was jogging prior to my scan but I was told I had to have an operation four days later. I hope that doesn't happen to Wayne.”


As Eriksson looked ahead to England’s opening match against Paraguay in Frankfurt, he added: “Everything so far is absolutely perfect and I can't see any problems for Saturday.”
Peter Crouch, who scored a hat-trick but was embarrassed after chipping a penalty over the crossbar in a 6-0 win over Jamaica at the weekend, is expected to continue standing in for Rooney alongside Michael Owen in attack. The Liverpool giant already appears to have become something of a cult figure in Germany as onlookers were willing him to perform his famous 'Robokop' goal celebration, but to no avail.

Penalty miss
Crouch had an opportunity to find the net from the spot during training and although he unsurprisingly ditched the flawed technique he deployed at Old Trafford, he missed once again as back-up goalkeeper David James dived low to his right to palm the ball away.

Eriksson said: “We always practise penalties, but maybe a little bit more now and the players like it. It’s very good when you (journalists) and photographers are there because that puts pressure on them a little bit.”

England goalkeeper Paul Robinson added: “It’s difficult because the lads get used to taking penalties against you and you generally tend to know which way they like going. At some stage we will have to ask them to tell us which way they will go and we won’t dive until they’ve kicked it to make it harder for them to score. They really have to put it right in the corners then.”

Training wrapped up with a practice match between the youngest players in the squad and the oldest, which finished in a draw. The result was settled on penalties, with the senior players emerging victorious.

Japan’s World Cup Prospect

Tatsuya Tanaka only played his first match for Japan this summer but the FIFA World Cup™ finals hopeful could not have asked for a better start.
The Urawa Reds forward may face a battle with the likes of Atsushi Yanagisawa and Masashi Oguro for a starting place in Zico's side but his performance against China in the Eastern Asian Football Federation (EAFF) Championship underlined immediately his predatory prowess.
On his first international start, the 22-year-old struck a superb late goal to earn Japan a draw after they had trailed China 2-0, and in doing so earned himself a call-up for the final match of Japan's FIFA World Cup qualifying campaign against Iran. An injury denied Tanaka a second chance to impress Zico but he is determined to ensure that further opportunities come his way.
"For the time being I must do my job well with my club and help Urawa Reds win this season's J-League," he said in a recent interview with FIFAworldcup.com. "Because this is the only thing that I can do to earn a place in the national team and play in the World Cup in Germany next year."
Early days
Tanaka started to play football at the age of seven. Growing up in Tokuyama City on the southern tip of Japan's main island, Honshu, his talents attracted the attention of football scouts while he was still attending the Shuyo Elementary School. By his teens, Tanaka was ready to follow the old-fashioned route of the football hopeful in Japan, entering a specialist 'soccer' school, in his case the renowned Teikyo High School in Tokyo.
In spring 2001, Tanaka left school and stepped into the professional ranks, joining Urawa Reds. It was not long before he struck his first goal in senior football and the date remains etched on his mind. "Among all the goals I've scored for my club, the most memorable was my first as a professional. I scored in a 4-2 win against Tokyo Verdy and I can remember the date clearly – 6 May 2001," he says. Since then he has become a regular, if not prolific, scorer, recording 35 goals in 111 appearances to date for Reds. Last season he netted ten times while this term he has seven goals to his name already.
Every footballer, be it a park player or a professional, grew up with a hero they wished to emulate, and Tanaka is no exception. The player he looked up to was striker Masahiro Fukuda who in the 1995 season was the most prolific scorer in Japanese football, with 32 goals in 50 games - and obviously Tanaka took note.
Another hero was Kazu Miura, Japanese football's star player in the first years of the J-League, who is still playing today at second division Yokohama FC at the age of 38.
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Out to prove himself
Now Tanaka's aim is to prove he can do a job for the national team. The EAFF Championship in Korea Republic offered him a first opportunity, following Zico's decision to use a squad of home-based players for the tournament and, in doing so, experiment a little. In the absence of European-based forwards Yanagisawa and Naohiro Takahara, Tanaka featured as a second-half substitute in the opening 1-0 loss to Korea DPR and was named in the starting lineup for the following fixture against China.
There it was that he made his mark. China started strongly and an inexperienced Japan side went in at the interval two goals down. After Teruyuki Moniwa had pulled a goal back, Tanaka picked the perfect moment to claim his first international goal, rocketing a shot into the roof of the net with three minutes left on the clock.
Afterwards Zico said of his new faces: "I think they did a good job given that this was the first time they had played together. They produced a lot of chances, although it would have been better if they had converted more of them." It can only help Tanaka's cause that, of all the new faces, he was the man who found the finishing touch when it mattered.

Mexico's World Cup Prospect

Mexico's 5-2 win over Guatemala last week was all about one man: Francisco Fonseca. The Cruz Azul striker found the net four times, making him only the fourth Tricolor player ever to achieve the feat in a FIFA World Cup™ qualifier.
But that was not all. Fonseca's hefty haul against the Central Americans also did wonders for his goal-scoring average. With 15 in his first 20 games, the player universally known as Kikín has a higher goals-per-game ratio than Enrique Borja, Luis Hernandez, Cuauhtemoc Blanco or Jared Borgetti had at a similar stage in their international careers.
His record also surpasses that of many of the greats of world football, including Ronaldo, Thierry Henry or Michael Owen. When asked about the feat, Fonseca was typically unassuming: "The truth is that I wouldn't have scored a single goal if it weren't for assists from my team-mates. So I owe everything to them."
The strength to endure
Despite suffering many setbacks, both personal and professional, along the way, Fonseca has always found the will to carry on. The loss of a brother at an early age and having to spend many long years in his country's lower divisions only served to strengthen his resolve and will to win.
Fonseca was only two years old when tragedy struck his family, with Enrique, his older brother, dying suddenly in his sleep. And though he grew up admiring a brother he never really knew, he did inherit two enduring features from his sibling: his nickname Kikín and his love of football.
And so it was that Fonseca dreamed from an early age of becoming a professional footballer. However, realising his dream would prove far from easy. Despite a long apprenticeship in the reserves at his hometown side Leon, he was not given a chance to prove himself in the top flight. Instead, Fonseca was sent out on loan to three second-division sides, Yucatan, Curtidores and La Piedad. It was with the latter that the striker finally made his first division debut at 22 after helping them secure promotion the previous season.
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Having strived so long to get to the top, Fonseca struggled to make an impression when he got there. Deployed out on the right wing, the centre-forward failed to find the net in his 28 games. In spite of this, he caught the eye of one of the legends of the Mexican game, UNAM Pumas coach Hugo Sanchez, who signed the player, convinced he had unearthed a rough diamond.
After spending 14 games on the bench, Sanchez finally gave him his chance and since then Fonseca has not looked back. He played 71 times in two and half years, netting an impressive 25 goals. Moreover, he played a pivotal role in ending a 13-year title drought for the Pumas, endearing himself to the club's fanatical supporters in the process.
The reasons for Fonseca's popularity were threefold: he had a keen eye for goal, demonstrated enormous commitment, and always had time for the fans. Unlike many of his peers, Kikín regularly put an extra hour in after training to work on his game, and often spent as long again patiently signing autographs and posing for photos with the club's fans.
A star on the rise
In November 2004, Fonseca made his international debut in Mexico's friendly against Ecuador. His impact was immediate, with El Tri winning 2-1 courtesy of a brace from their new striker. Since then, he has been almost ever-present in his country's starting XI. His ten goals in Mexico's Germany 2006 qualifying campaign made him the third-highest scorer in the CONCACAF Zone preliminaries.
In January 2005, the player was transferred to Cruz Azul for close to four million dollars – an enormous sum in the Mexican transfer market. Fonseca quickly picked up where he left off, plundering 16 goals in his 28 games after forming a deadly strike partnership with the Argentine Cesar 'Chelito' Delgado.
Fonseca says he still has two more goals he wants to achieve. The first, obviously, is to compete at the FIFA World Cup and help his side make history there. "I am really excited about playing at the World Cup. The team is improving all the time. I think we have a great squad and a bunch of level-headed players. We also have plenty of time to make sure we arrive at the World Cup in tip-top condition. We're all united in our goal to be world champions," the 25-year-old says.
His second aspiration is to one day play in Europe. "One of my goals is to give it a go there. I'm working towards that every day, and God willing my chance will arrive. If opportunity knocks for me one day, then I'll be ready," the player vows. With his goal-scoring instinct and abundant charisma, expect the offers to come thick and fast after he struts his stuff on the world stage next summer in Germany.

England’s World Cup Prospect

Hype is hard to escape in modern football, where a handful of promising appearances can see a young player thrust prematurely into the spotlight, but when bold claims are made about England midfielder Shaun Wright-Phillips, there is good reason to take heed.
Wright-Phillips, in the words of Jose Mourinho, manager of his new club Chelsea, "has the qualities that everyone is looking for in a modern footballer – he is quick, he is intelligent, he is creative". And that was before Mourinho had even begun working with his £21m acquisition from Manchester City.
Having seen him at close hand on the training ground and in pre-season matches, Mourinho went further in his praise when he said last week: "For me, he's even better than I thought. He is more intelligent. He is not just intuitive but he thinks about the game."
Mourinho is not the first person to marvel at the exciting combination of speed and skill encapsulated in Wright-Phillips' diminutive 5ft 6in frame. Former England star Kevin Keegan was one of the player's managers at his previous club, Manchester City, and he described him last year – in typically unrestrained fashion - as "the best young player in England by a long way, with more courage, desire and heart than anyone I have ever worked with".
There is considerable evidence already of these qualities that Keegan cites. As the adopted son of Ian Wright, the Arsenal and England striker of the 1990s, it is inevitable his father's enthusiasm should have rubbed off on him – indeed Wright-Phillips himself has told how he and younger brother Bradley, a striker at Man City, would have to complete a certain number of kick-ups before being allowed into the house.
As a teenager Wright-Phillips, who is now 23, showed the strength of character to recover from being rejected by Nottingham Forest ("Too small," he was told) and instead went to Man City where he gradually made his name.
Fast forward a few years and he responded to the pressure of making his England debut last August by scoring a wonder goal within 20 minutes of taking the field as a substitute against Ukraine - carrying the ball from his own half before crashing a shot into the net from 20 yards.
That was not Wright-Phillips’ only spectacular strike last term – he scored a memorable 25-yarder at his father's old stamping ground of Highbury in January, underlining the goal threat he brings in addition to his pace and trickery. Indeed it was one of eleven goals that left him as City’s joint-top scorer in 2004/05.
Move to Chelsea
Now, of course, Wright-Phillips is a Chelsea player. Roman Abramovich's riches ensured that Arsenal, his father's former club, could not compete for his signature and made him the third most expensive English player in history (behind Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney). The popular perception is that joining Chelsea – and playing UEFA Champions League football at Stamford Bridge - will help him add to his four England caps but whereas he was a key player at City, there is no guarantee of a place in the Chelsea team.
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The London club already have three players to fill the wide positions in Dutch international Arjen Robben, Republic of Ireland winger Damien Duff, and England's Joe Cole. It will help that Wright-Phillips is a versatile footballer who can play not only on the right wing but also as one of a front three – as on his full England debut against the Netherlands – or even in a midfield trio.
Wright-Phillips, who appeared as a second-half substitute in Chelsea’s season-opening victory over Arsenal in the FA Community Shield on Sunday, believes he can only prosper, declaring that: "Competition is just healthy really and will help make me a better player."
One person who will hope as much is his England manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, who with an eye on next summer's FIFA World Cup™, is hoping the Londoner could be one of those players who step up a level at just the right time to make an impact on the world stage. As the Swede told FIFAworldcup,com: "There are some young players out there such as Shaun Wright-Phillips, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Kieran Richardson who could progress in the next 12 months."
It is a big year then for Wright-Phillips – and that's not just hype talking.