England's World Cup Starts Here, Folks
Forget the years of qualifying, months of jockeying for positions in Sven's squad and weeks of Wayne Rooney-related 'will he, won't he?' - this is where the World Cup starts for England, at Old Trafford against Hungary tonight.
This is where we see the team that Sven built, the XI that will face Paraguay in Frankfurt next Saturday. For 90 minutes at least we can forget about Rooney's foot, stop laughing at Jermaine Jenas, and watch England's World Cup team in action.
And isn't it all a bit exciting?
It's been made even more exciting by the revelation that Jamie Carragher will play in midfield - there's nothing like an unexpected tactical change just days before a tournament to crank up interest.
We all thought we could reel off a Rooney-less England team in our sleep, though most of us weren't happy with Peter Crouch as a Plan A and banged the 'push Gerrard further up front' drum until we almost deafened ourselves, and now it seems that even Sven wasn't happy with that lanky plan.
After shocking us with his squad selection, he's now shocking us with tactical changes. We like this demob-happy version of Sven who, after years of predictability, seems to have decided to give us all a thrill again by picking untried teenagers and fielding players out of position.
Tonight at Old Trafford we shall see the fruits in one of the few international friendlies worth sitting down and watching from start to finish, one of the few international friendlies in which the players are thinking of England and not the fact that their club manager has told them not to play more than an hour and to only give 80%.
Will Ashley Cole look like the player of two years ago? Will the Gerrard and Lampard partnership blossom with the security of a holding player? Will Rio Ferdinand concentrate for the full 90 minutes? How many times will the BBC commentary team mention the 'R' word?
For once we've actually got questions and we should see answers. England's World Cup starts here, and even the cynics amongst us are getting just a little bit excited...
Forget the years of qualifying, months of jockeying for positions in Sven's squad and weeks of Wayne Rooney-related 'will he, won't he?' - this is where the World Cup starts for England, at Old Trafford against Hungary tonight.
This is where we see the team that Sven built, the XI that will face Paraguay in Frankfurt next Saturday. For 90 minutes at least we can forget about Rooney's foot, stop laughing at Jermaine Jenas, and watch England's World Cup team in action.
And isn't it all a bit exciting?
It's been made even more exciting by the revelation that Jamie Carragher will play in midfield - there's nothing like an unexpected tactical change just days before a tournament to crank up interest.
We all thought we could reel off a Rooney-less England team in our sleep, though most of us weren't happy with Peter Crouch as a Plan A and banged the 'push Gerrard further up front' drum until we almost deafened ourselves, and now it seems that even Sven wasn't happy with that lanky plan.
After shocking us with his squad selection, he's now shocking us with tactical changes. We like this demob-happy version of Sven who, after years of predictability, seems to have decided to give us all a thrill again by picking untried teenagers and fielding players out of position.
Tonight at Old Trafford we shall see the fruits in one of the few international friendlies worth sitting down and watching from start to finish, one of the few international friendlies in which the players are thinking of England and not the fact that their club manager has told them not to play more than an hour and to only give 80%.
Will Ashley Cole look like the player of two years ago? Will the Gerrard and Lampard partnership blossom with the security of a holding player? Will Rio Ferdinand concentrate for the full 90 minutes? How many times will the BBC commentary team mention the 'R' word?
For once we've actually got questions and we should see answers. England's World Cup starts here, and even the cynics amongst us are getting just a little bit excited...
we have played over the years.
Hope I'm wrong