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Tuesday Kickoff: World Cup rosters to be set

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Today is the day aspiring World Cup players have been waiting for, and in some cases dreading.

Today is the day the final 23-man rosters for all 32 World Cup teams are finalized, and while the U.S. national team took away the suspense for American fans by naming its team last Wednesday, there is still plenty of intrigue around the world.

Here are some tidbits to already have surfaced regarding rosters:

South Africa has dropped all-time scoring leader Benni McCarthy.

Giovani Dos Santos is reportedly considering quitting after his brother Jonathan was left off Mexico's World Cup squad.

Sunderland striker Darren Bent is reportedly set to be one of the players cut by England manager Fabio Capello. Rumors are also surfacing this morning that Theo Walcott is also being cut.

Argentine-born striker Lucas Barrios made Paraguay's 23-man squad, and is seen as the likely replacement for Salvador Cabanas.

The roster status of American-born striker Giuseppe Rossi with Italy has yet to be announced, but reports out of Italy suggest Rossi should be one of the final players to make the cut. Serbian defender and former U.S. Under-17 player Neven Subotic is expected to make Serbia's final roster.

We will post a link to the full rosters when they become available so stay tuned.

For now, feel free to share your thoughts on these stories in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. If Johnathan cannot make Mexico final roster what makes his dad think he will make Brazil or Spain. This is so dumb, Johnathan has not done anything special actually when I watched him he was quite boring. He did nothing special. Also, why is everyone having big mouth’s during the world cup time. Roger Miller called out Eto now Ziznho calling out Augirre. Good grief -__-

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  2. Don’t know about the rumor, but Univisión got the rights to Mexican National Team again, so the impediment to US-Mexico friendlies has been removed. (Univisión has the Spanish language rights in the US for both sides now).

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  3. As I recall, there was much discussion during last year’s Gold Cup about the composition of Mexico’s squad versus the U.S. team, especially after the 5-0 thrashing in the Final (yes, I was trying to forget also). Anyway, in light of recent World Cup roster announcements, here is the final tally….

    * 2 of the 11 US starters from the Gold Cup Final are going to South Africa (Goodson, Holden). None of our bench players from that team are going.

    * 7 of the 11 Mexico starters are going to S.Africa (Ochoa, Magallon, Juarez, Torrado, I.Castro, Medina, Dos Santos) plus Franco and Vela who were reserves that day.

    So, I think we can now definitively say that Mexico’s “A” team beat the U.S. “B” or even “C” team that ugly day in East Rutherford. This fact doesn’t necessarily make the loss any less painful, but it is interesting to know….

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  4. Subotic makes Serbia’s roster

    BELGRADE, Serbia — Defender Neven Subotic, who grew up in Salt Lake City and played for a U.S. youth national team, has made Serbia’s World Cup roster.

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  5. Gio is not going anywhere. He is cap-tied to Mexico and deserting the team 10 days prior to the World Cup would be grounds for banning him for life. I’m sure he doesn’t want to retire from international play at the tender age of 20.

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  6. Holland is out before the Semi’s
    USA goes through to the 16
    Injury problems will take down England
    Bornstein gets laid

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  7. GO New Zealand. They beat Serbia, they’ll do it against Italy, draw paraguay and slovakia. Finish with 5 points, 2nd in group. Calling it.

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  8. It would be even better if we could knock out Serbia in the round of 16 and Italy in the Semis in our very own “Suck It!” world tour…but as that is unlikely, I’d settle for at least Italy going out in group.

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  9. Well, at least he comes by it honestly. His father’s tantrum seemed appropriate for a 12-year-old, but for a grown man, not so much. It seems that he’s taught his sons to have similar tantrums when they don’t get their way.

    The ridiculous thing is that Jonathan’s got his whole career ahead of him. If I were his father or his brother, I’d tell him to work his butt off to make it impossible for the coach to cut him four years from now. Use the snub as motivation–that’s what adults do.

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  10. I like your point about Argentina being a small team. Small teams don’t win the World Cup. England dominated Mexico in the air because they had a good half a foot on each of them.

    Big teams win big tourney’s.

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  11. Exactly… he did want to play for Germany and couldn’t, so he opted for Serbia over the US who found him kicking balls at a park and gave him a chance.

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  12. Why? what has Argentina showed you this cycle that was any good. You do know they came in fourth in south america; one point above fifth place? This team is really small and Messi doesn’t have iniesta or Xavi. Bet on the big physical teams like Germany.

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  13. Completely agree- Subotic is Serbian, if I were in his shoes then I would feel a real passion for my true home. Rossi on the other hand is a loser, could have been a god in USA but instead traded it in to be a fringe player in Italy who they all look at as an American- wow what a mistake.

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