Provisional Squads So Far

OK, we're now getting down to the serious business of the World Cup with a number of nations announcing their provisional World Cup 2010 squads. To avoid the world's most tedious blog post, I'm just linking to news articles detailing who is in and who is out.

Germany Provisional Squad : No Hitzlesperger, no Kuranyi - full details here.

South Korea Provisional Squad : Park Ji Sung, that Bolton guy and full details here.

Ghana Provisional Squad : including Germany's Kevin Prince Boateng?! - full details here.

Holland Provisional Squad : Christ, they've got some good players - full details here.

Huh? Who Tipped Him And Other World Cup Nonsense

No sh*t story of the day? I'm glad you asked. Well, it's this story on Goal.com in which a former Italy coach tips Italy to win the 2010 World Cup Final. Fascinating.

In other World Cup nonsense, WalesOnline seemed very disappointed that Swansea ''keeper Dorus de Vries (no, me neither) didn't make the Holland provisional squad. After all, he had been 'tipped' to get in. And the identity of the man that tipped him to be a part of the squad. Well, none other than Swansea boss Paulo Da Sousa.

Elsewhere, Algeria boss, Rabah Saadane has revealed that he will be using special technology to analyse their world cup opponents. At least in part, this seems to involve watching tapes of the matches. You can't make this stuff up, you know.

Have To Hope This One Doesn't Backfire

Germany head coach Joachim Low has announced that Kevin Kuranyi will not be part of the 2010 Germany World Cup squad.

Although Low denies it, saying that there were "tactical" reasons for excluding the striker, it does look like revenge for Kuranyi walking out of the stadium in Dortmund before the final whistle after being omitted from the matchday squad for the qualifier against Russia in October 2008.

The thing is, Low's claims that "It would have been no problem for us to give him a new chance in the national team" but that "after consideration among our coaching staff we came to the conclusion that we had other ideas, tactically and personnel-wise, for the composition of the World Cup squad." ring very, very hollow when you look at how Kuranyi's fellow strikers have performed this season.

While Kuranyi scored 18 goals in the Bundesliga, Bayern's Miroslav Klose has got, well, just one goal. Lukas Podolski has done a lot better, though. He's got two. In twenty seven appearances.

Not very impressive, is it. Bayer Leverkusen's Stefan Kiessling does have 21 league goals this season, but he only has 3 caps at international level and no goals.

Looking at it from this perspective, it seems very clear why Kuranyi has been excluded. Because, if Low was picking form players, Kuranyi would be one of the first on the plane.

Let's hope this one doesn't backfire on Low.