England’s players have told head coach Fabio Capello they want David James (9/1 to win the Yashin Award) to be their goalkeeper for the World Cup.
The 39-year-old Portsmouth player has declared himself fit to face USA in Saturday’s Group C clash in Rustenberg, despite sitting out training this week.
James, who has 50 international caps, is the most experienced of the three keepers Capello has taken to the finals, but he did not feature in Monday-s 3-0 warm-up victory over Platimum Stars – when rivals Joe Hart and Robert Green got 45 minutes each.
Everton keeper Tim Howard (66/1), who will be the USA’s number one choice, says he believes Hart is the best of the three and voted for him in the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Team of the Year poll.
But both Howard and James are agreed on the unsuitability of the new Jabulani World Cup football, as are Spain’s Iker Casillas (5/1) and 2006 Yashin Award winner Gianluigi Buffon (6/1).
The former Manchester United shot-stopper Howard believes the current wave of criticism from keepers and strikers alike may only be the tip of the iceberg with the finals due to begin on Friday.
“It’s terrible,” said Howard. “You will hear that a lot next week, next month.
“We are trying to get used to it, trying to read an unreadable situation. Hopefully it’s not going to come back and bite us but you are going to see some crazy things with the ball.
“What does it do? What doesn’t it do, would be a better question.
“It moves all over. If you hit five balls with the same striking motion you wouldn’t get the same result.”
Fans could be forgiven for expecting a goal glut during the finals (5/6 to be over 160.5 goals in Total Number of Goals Scored) with last time’s total of 147 under threat from the Jabulani ball.
“It’s very weird,” Brazilian striker Luis Fabiano said. “All of a sudden it changes trajectory on you. It’s like it doesn’t want to be kicked: like someone is guiding it……….it’s supernatural.”
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