Everton defender Phil Jagielka says England’s players will all have points to prove when they tackle old rivals the Republic of Ireland in an end-of-season friendly at Wembley Stadium in London today.
England travel to Rio de Janeiro after the game for a glamor fixture with Brazil and the two matches represent opportunities for players to convince manager Roy Hodgson that they can play key roles in the weightier games to come.
Following another friendly with neighbors Scotland in August, England will resume their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign with a double-header against Moldova and Ukraine in early September.
Photo: Reuters
With only three games scheduled before Moldova travel to Wembley on Sept. 6, Jagielka is hoping to prove he deserves a chance to become one of England’s first-choice centerbacks.
“We don’t really know what the starting 11 will be, so it’s all about putting down a marker this week,” said the 30-year-old, who has not played for his country since October last year because of injury. “There are no points available, but I’m sure everyone will be trying to cement their place ahead of the games in August and September. Previous players nailed down that position for three or four years, so it will be interesting.”
Andy Carroll, Tom Cleverley and Kyle Walker have all pulled out of the squad due to injury, with injuries to captain Steven Gerrard and Jack Wilshere leaving England particularly light in central midfield.
Although Hodgson drafted Jack Rodwell into his squad to provide cover last week, it is more likely to open the door to a starting place for Cleverley’s Manchester United colleague Michael Carrick.
Carrick was one of the outstanding performers in United’s Premier League title triumph, earning a place in the Professional Footballers’ Association Team of the Year, but he says he is bemused by suggestions that he has enjoyed a breakthrough season.
“It slightly amuses me when I see or hear people saying different things, as if I have suddenly appeared from nowhere,” Carrick said. “I have maybe played a little bit better than I have done in the past, but I have been happy with my form for a long time really.”
Today’s game marks the start of a run of four matches in two weeks for the Republic of Ireland, who host Georgia in a friendly on Sunday, before meeting the Faroe Islands in a World Cup qualifier on June 7.
They finish the season with a prestige friendly in New York against world and European champions Spain, who beat them 4-0 at Euro 2012.
Manager Giovanni Trapattoni has challenged his players to prove they are capable of competing with England.
“The [Republic of Ireland] players play in England for Stoke [City] and many teams; the England players play for Manchester United, they play for Arsenal, but we can show them we are the same — that’s a stimulation for me. It’s very important that they show they are every bit as good,” the 74-year-old Italian said.
The Republic of Ireland’s all-time leading scorer Robbie Keane has been granted dispensation to play by the Los Angeles Galaxy, but Leeds United midfielder Paul Green has withdrawn from the squad due to a hamstring problem, with Hull City’s Stephen Quinn brought in as cover.
The game represents the first encounter between the two teams since a 1995 fixture at Dublin’s Lansdowne Road had to be abandoned when English hooligans went on the rampage.
Hodgson has called for England’s fans to behave, writing in the match program: “I strongly urge everyone in the ground to show each other respect and not to chant songs that could be regarded as insulting to others — particularly from a religious or political perspective.”
The Football Association has also e-mailed supporters attending the game to ask them not to sing offensive songs.
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
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
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier