Michael Owen and Peter Crouch have been backed to make up for the loss of Wayne Rooney by scoring the goals to take England to World Cup glory in Germany.
Newcastle forward Owen and Liverpool striker Crouch were set to line up alongside each other yesterday as England faced Hungary in a pre-World Cup friendly against Hungary at Old Trafford.
With Rooney's World Cup fate hanging in the balance due to the broken metatarsal injury suffered while playing for Manchester United against Chelsea last month, England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has been forced to find an alternative partner for Owen.
PHOTO: EPA
And defender Rio Ferdinand believes that the 2.02m Crouch has done enough to prove that he has the attributes to be a World Cup success story for England.
"I think Michael and Crouchy have a lot of potential as a strike pairing and they showed that when we beat Argentina earlier last November," Ferdinand said.
"Peter is under-estimated because of his height, but he brings other players into the game and it's not just about his good touch and height. Against Argentina, their defenders were wondering who on earth he was when he came on as a substitute and they had about three players trying to mark him," he said.
PHOTO: EPA
"That meant that Michael suddenly had a lot of space to run into and it paid off because he scored the winning goals late on," he said.
Owen, 26, has only just fully recovered from breaking a bone in his foot on New Year's Eve, but it was a "tight thigh" after training on Monday that caused Eriksson to send him to hospital for a scan.
The results showed no serious problem and Owen will take his place in what Eriksson has said will be the team he expects to play against Paraguay, on June 10 in England's World Cup opener.
The former Liverpool and Real Madrid star is likely to be given 90 minutes against the Hungarians and Ferdinand admits that the striker is a crucial figure in England's plans.
"Michael is a fantastic goal-poacher and you know that you can rely on him to do the business in the big matches. If he hasn't had a touch in the whole 90 minutes, he is still capable of scoring the winner in the first minute of stoppage time," he said.
"He has been out injured for a long time this season, but he is getting the chance to build up his fitness in the games against Hungary and Jamaica this week and by the time the World Cup starts, he should be flying. His record speaks for itself and you wouldn't bet against him breaking Bobby Charlton's international scoring record sooner rather than later," Ferdinand said.
Eriksson, who dismissed as "not true at all" reports that he had told senior England players that he wanted to become the next manager at Real Madrid, conceded that his initial hopes that Hungary would provide suitable preparation for the World Cup game against Sweden have been dashed in the wake of Peter Bozsik's appointment as the new Hungary manager in place of Lothar Matthaus.
"When we decided to play Hungary, I phoned up the manager, Lothar Matthaus, and asked if he wanted a game at Wembley," Eriksson said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but