Fabio Capello announced the 23 English lions he will be taking to South Africa with him in attempt to bring the World Cup back to England.  The World Cup kicks off on the 11th of June with the hosts South Africa, taking on Mexico in the first game of the Fifa World Cup. Fabio Capello was hit with quite a significant blow in the weeks leading up to the last England friendly’s before the start of the big tournament and that was England talisman David Beckham. After Beckham picked up an Achilles injury whilst making an appearance for AC Milan, Capello had no choice but to leave the winger out of his final 23 man squad.

After Beckham had visited various treatment rooms and lots of different therapy rooms london the diagnosis was clear, he would not be featuring in this years World Cup in South Africa. Beckham, the ex England captain could well have played his last game for England as the next World Cup will be in 2014 and he is already 35 years of age he would be knocking on 40 by the time that comes around so as you can imagine, he would have been pretty devastated about this injury and not being able to make a playing appearance in this summer’s tournament. I say playing appearance as he is still travelling with the squad to South Africa but he is going to be making an appearance on the coaching side of things.

Beckham’s rise to footballing stardom you could say stemmed from his loan spell at Preston North End when he scored twice, once from a free kick and once directly from a corner. Following this Sir Alex Ferguson recalled him back to his parent club and the rest as they say is history.

The England squad announcement brought one quite large shock with it. The fact that Theo Walcott will not be going to the World Cup after being a shock inclusion in Sven-Göran Eriksson’s 2006 World Cup squad. He has been in and out of the Arsenal squad this season after been dogged by injury this season, and he has never been given a proper run in the squad when he has been fit. His England form of late has not been anything special either but still, he is a big shock to not be going to the world cup. The six other players to be told that they will not be travelling were, Darren Bent, Adam Johnson, Tom Huddlestone, Leighton Baines, Scott Parker and Michael Dawson all missed out on going to South Africa too.

Of the 23 players that have been selected Gareth Barry could possibly be a doubt to start against the USA which means Capello will have the choice of James Milner, Steven Gerrard, Michael Carrick and Frank Lampard in the centre of the park, and as Liverpool fans know, Gerrard can operate on either wing and Lampard and Gerrard can both operate as attacking midfielders.

The forwards he has taken, we can all safely assume that Rooney is fully fit and will be a no brainer to start all the games in South Africa and after his season with Manchester United scoring 34 goals in 44 appearances in all competitions, so you could say a lot is resting on Wayne’s shoulders and to say the least, England expects..