K.O. 8.05pm BST, Tuesday, 30 May 2006, Old Trafford, Manchester, England
Another day, another Wayne Rooney toe prognosis. Understandably, England coach Sven Goran Eriksson seems bored of the subject and has vowed not to answer any more questions about Rooney until his next scan.
The message from the England and Manchester United camps over the weekend seems quite clear - Wayne Rooney will not make the World Cup. An announcement on the official Man Utd website
says that the fracture involves the joint of the toe, which takes longer to heal than a straight metatarsal break.
Originally due to have a scan on his foot on June 14th, this has now been brought forward to June 7th so England manager Sven Goran Eriksson can make a decision on Rooney's inclusion by Fifa's June 9th deadline.
England are playing up the fact that Eriksson requested the earlier scan because the original date would have been past that cut-off date to call a replacement and they were never happy with it. That seems unlikely - despite Man Utd's words of warning, the England coach seemed happy that all previous fitness checks had shown Rooney on course for a comeback in the knock-out rounds and he had been pencilled in for the final squad - hence that original later scan.
It's not clear when the joint fracture was first known but the announcement on Monday was the first time that England knew about it. The scan on June 7th can't really bring any good news for Rooney's participation if the injury is more complicated than first thought.
If Eriksson can be believed, tonight's friendly against the less-than-marvellous-Magyars will feature England's first choice World Cup XI and provide an interesting insight into how a Rooney-less England will play.
Steven Gerrard has been chosen to play behind Michael Owen in an attempt to transfer Gerrard's Liverpool form to the national team. His Reds team mate Jamie Carragher has also got himself a starting place as anchor man in midfield.
There are a number of questions raised by this selection. Despite saying "There's better players than me to play there [holding role]" earlier this season, Carragher has played that position previously for Liverpool and for England U21s.
Michael Carrick's unimpressive England B performance last week has obviously counted against him and the same can be said for Owen Hargreaves (despite the Bayern man playing out of position in that match). When England have used an anchor man, then centre back Ledley King has been asked to do the job. With King injured and Carrick not trusted, it seems Eriksson's first instincts to use a defender in that role will prevail.
Hungary will probably not play with a man between midfield and attack so Carragher will have no man-marking duties similar to King's marking of Riquelme in the Argentina friendly. This should allow him to not just cover for any midfield forays from Lampard and Gerrard but also allow both full backs to push up.
If Carragher's responsibilities seem reasonably straight forward, then there are far more question marks over the Gerrard-Michael Owen axis and Owen's ability to play up-front alone. The ball will need to be held up to allow the cavalry to arrive and while Peter Crouch has shown himself adept in this role, Owen's stature and skills are not suited. There's a danger that Gerrard may be sucked further forward as a centre forward and start playing with his back to goal - hardly utilising his abilities.
Even if this post-Rooney formation works perfectly, doubts will be cast over the quality of the opposition - Hungary are currently 76th in the Fifa ranking (nine below Belarus) and have a new coach in Peter Bozsik, who steered his side to a 2-0 victory over New Zealand in Budapest last week in his first game in charge.
Tonight's friendly was arranged with his predecessor Lothar Matthaus, and Eriksson apparently requested they play like Sweden to provide England with a test similar to the one they face on 20th June in Cologne.
If this unusual request is still granted remains to be seen. Coupled with the new-look England formation, this match should prove more interesting than the anaemic fare normally encountered when England play friendlies. Despite Eriksson's pleas, a poor performance could see Sven once again fielding questions on Rooney's toe.
