Damn you FIFA, who cares about this round of friendlies, anyway? Pic via Internet News.
Well, here we go again. The Premier League campaign starts in just four days for most teams in England (five for Arsenal and Liverpool and six for Manchester United and Newcastle United.) Euro 2012 qualifying doesn't start for another month or so. So, what better time for FIFA to arrange a mess of international matches that don't count!
Let's assess the damage for Arsenal. 14 Gunners have been selected in this round of pointlessness including 12 first team members. Arsenal does dodge a few bullets in certain circumstances, especially with the much maligned French World Cup team left behind and Robin van Persie and much of the Netherlands World Cup squad omitted as well. Anyway, here are the players you should be praying return to North London in one piece:
Emmanuel Eboue and the Ivory Coast will get their friendly out of the way pretty much faster than everyone else. Of the 12 first team Gunners involved in this round, only Eboue plays today; the rest play tomorrow. Not only is that fortunate for the team trickster, but their friendly against Italy is also being played in London, at West Ham United's Upton Park.
Cesc Fabregas and the World Cup winning Spain squad will be getting back together again, where they will all likely attempt to brainwash him into joining Barcelona. They'll be playing against Carlos Vela and Mexico in the 105,000 seat Azteca Stadium. Every time Carlos Vela plays a friendly at home in Mexico, it seems like it takes him two weeks or more to recover from the resulting jet lag. Hopefully Fabregas can handle the time differences a little better, otherwise I fear we won't even see Cesc in red and white for a month.
England named three Gunners in their squad for their Wembley Stadium friendly against Hungary; all of whom were of course left behind for the World Cup: Jack Wilshere, Kieran Gibbs, and Theo Walcott. As much as I'm excited to see these guys outperform all of the Spurs, United, and Chelsea players that crashed out of South Africa, I just hope the notoriously bad Wembley pitch doesn't cause any damage.
With a trip to Anfield looming around the corner, the team obviously needs Andrei Arshavin ready to terrorize the Reds as he has in the past (to the tune of five goals in two matches. I am not going to stop reminding you all about that.) Arshavin was held out of the Legia Warsaw friendly with a slight muscular problem, so we may need to hope extra hard that Russia's friendly with Bulgaria in St. Petersburg doesn't do any further damage to our Diminutive Ridiculous Facial Expression Maker.
Samir Nasri was left out of France's World Cup catastrophe but has been recalled for this week's friendly with Norway in Oslo. Every French player that was in South Africa has been left behind for this one, which is honestly great news for Abou Diaby, Bacary Sagna, and Gael Clichy. This is also fairly good news for Nasri, who is keen to rebound after a difficult campaign last year. You can tell the fire to succeed is in him this season, and that's exciting.
Thomas Vermaelen is the only Arsenal defender recalled by his national team, which makes sense, since he's Belgium's captain. They'll play Finland in Turku, the Official Christmas City of Finland. Speaking of international defenders, Laurent Koscielny has declared his intent to play for France rather than Poland.
Speaking of Poland, Lukasz Fabianski has been called for their match against Cameroon (who will not feature Alex Song.) Tomas Rosicky is with the Czech team in Latvia and Marouane Chamakh makes his first international appearance as a Gunner as Morocco plays Equatorial Guinea in Rabat.
Two Gunners will also plays friendlies with their country's respective Under-21 sides: Henri Lansbury with the English U-21's against Uzbekistan in Bristol today and Vito Mannone with the Italian U-21's against Denmark tomorrow.
Safe travels to all!
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