Courtesy: The FA.com

Four nations squad named

Monday, 15 May 2006

England Head Coach Graeme Dell has unveiled his latest squad for the upcoming Four Nations Tournament at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport at the end of May where his young Lions take on the might of Belgium and Belarus as well as Cyprus.

Cyprus will present Dell with an opportunity to measure development over the two years since England’s introduction to this fast flowing technical game against a team who England faced in only their second competitive match back in January 2004.

On announcing his squad and looking back at the last games against Finland Dell said:“Once more I have included some new players who will get their first exposure to international Futsal as we aim to improve and educate the pool of players.

"They are all very good technicians and our F30 programme has been working with these players to educate them in the tactical aspects of the game whereby I am sure they will all give a good account of themselves in Sheffield.

“Despite having vast periods of possession against Finland in both of the games in February we simply didn’t take our chances nor defend as well as you need to at this game and we have to be better at this if we are going to continue our rate of progress.

"These errors prove costly in Futsal and the mistakes have to be eradicated, but the players know that. We have now learnt how to control games with possession but have to link that with improved defending of the counter attack and only through exposure to games like these can we learn how to do that better.

“Cyprus are the first team we will have come up against who are within one or two ranking positions of us and provided we play as well as we can it will be a realistic measure of our development."

Dell has shown faith in many of the players on his F30 programme although continuing to blood new talent in the shape of Leamington’s Jon Adams, Histon’s highly rated Erkan Okay as well as former Aston Villa schoolboy Alex Lobban boasting experience from the Major Indoor League in the US.

Sheffield’s Graham Smith gets his first call up for over a year having recovered from an injury sustained in December 2004 and is re-joined by Farai Jackson as England’s two stoppers.

Matty Hann of St Albans City has emerged as one of the stars of the Football Conference this season and is rewarded with a double call up after also making the outline 35 of the National Game XI.

England open their tournament against Cyprus at 7:30pm on Bank Holiday Monday 29th May and then play Belarus at 3pm on Tuesday 30th May, whilst concluding against Belgium at 7.30pm on Thursday 1st June 2006.

The tournament is being hosted in conjunction with the Sheffield and Hallamshire County FA.

Player - DOB - Caps

Jon Adams - 08.01.85 - 0
Anthony Allman - 14.12.80 - 6
John Atkinson - 28.10.82 - 4
Marc Canham - 11.09.82 - 18
Jimmy Elford - 12.06.80 - 14
Matt Hann - 06.09.80 - 6
Steve Harrison - 29.05.85 - 12
Farai Jackson - 19.07.82 - 10
Alex Lobban - 01.10.85 - 0
Michael Lyons - 24.07.81 - 4
Erkan Okay - 29.01.85 - 0
Michael Skuballa - 31.10.82 - 14
Graham Smith - 14.08.83 - 10
Alex Sykes - 02.04.74 - 15




Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com