Arrogant idiot.

Calciomercato reports that Lippi's going to give the new kids a start in Italy's friendly with Switzerland. Here's their projected lineup:

Buffon
Zambrotta Cannavaro Chiellini Criscito
Camoranesi Palombo Pirlo Marchisio
Gilardino Rossi

Criscito Criscito Criscito !!!!!!!

I hope Marchisio and Rossi do well too.

Cannavaro again?

Fishdoll likes Criscito and Marchisio.

Sky TG24 (which I now get at home) had an interesting soundbyte from Lippi this morning. He was interviewed about the squad selection and lineup and said something along the lines of 'if you don't play well, you're not going to get called up' (the commentators figure this is in reference to Toni and Montolivo). He also said that the kids need to grow up fast and prove they're ready to play for the Azzurri (in addition to Rossi, Criscito and Marchisio, Santon and Bocchetti are also in the squad).

genoa own him outright now i believe? otherwise i wouldnt wanna see a juve prospect do too well

Yep, Genoa own all of him.

then i'd love to see us go for him:) maybe next summer? and as a CB, even tho he plays mostly lb right now.

Ashley Young to get his first England start tonight due to Gerrard pulling out. It's about time. He's been the left winger in the EPL Team of the Season for 2 seasons running, got more assists than any other player over the past 2 seasons and the reigning Young Player of the Year.. yet it takes until now for him to start!? I wouldn't mind but Joe Cole been injured for ages!

..though if he gets injured it's all Capello's fault.

Other recent friendly results for us
England U21s 0-0 Holland U21s
England U20s 5-0 Montenegro U20s
England U17s 3-2 Scotland U17s

One of today's friendlies is Russia-Argentina. Both sides are fielding reasonably strong teams. Right now it's Russia 1 - 0 Argies (goal by Semshov). Fishdoll is quite surprised to discover he can follow text commentary in Russian. It's kind of fun.

EDIT: Fishdoll meh. Aguero equalized just before halftime. (Fishdoll likes him okay but can't cheer for any team captained by Javier Zanetti and including Nicolas Burdisso).

EDIT2: Fishdoll double meh. FT Russia 2 - 3 Argies. Meh.

Fishdoll also suspects that right about now, both Kurt and Locke are happy campers. Scotland are playing Norway in a qualifier. Scotland's CB Gary Caldwell has just been sent off and Norway's Riise (the ex Scouse) has just scored.

HT Norway 2-0 Scotland.

Nearly perfect, all I need now is for Carew to score and not get injured.

FT Norway 4-0 Scotland.

Scotlands WC hopes are aas they were before. None-existant.

Holland 1-0 England.

Mistake by Rio, Kuyt scores.

Fishdoll hop! Ivica Olic has scored for Croatia (who play Bielorussia in a qualifier today).

Kuyt again, from another sloppy back pass, this time Barry.

It's very frustrating. We've battered them and should be winning, yet we're 2-0 down.

We've been poor uptop from a lacklustre, wondering- around, doing nothing Heskey (surprise, surprise) and a fairly average performance from Wayne.

I thought Lampard, Heskey and Rooney were our best 3 players to be honest!

Play well, make a silly mistake, comfortably behind. The story of the England football team.

Lampard & Rooney have done alright, Heskey I've seen nothing bar a few pushes on defenders giving away free-kicks, I'd rather go 4-5-1 than have that useless player in our team, I'm still quizzing myself as to why Villa bought him...

Becks I'd say has been our best, yet again.

Most stuff we've done on the floor has come through Heskey so far, he's set pretty much everything up. It's when we're playing it wide and looking for crosses we're breaking down. I wasn't a fan of the signing, but he's been unplayable this pre-season, so much so I'd say he should start over Carew on Saturday, and Carew is a beast.

Croatia now lead 2-0 in Belarus, that's a good result if they win, Belarus are a good footballing side.

I'm just dissapointed that we don't have anyone better than Heskey up front, that just proves how far behind the likes of Spain, Holland, Brazil etc etc are.

No chance on winning the World Cup at this rate.

Still, looks like Heskey has been taken off, things are looking up

Heskey, Becks, Barry off. Defoe, SWP, Carrick on.

How the hell's SWP play for England? He's not even one of the best 8 wingers in the country.

Fishdoll raises a fin cautiously. Aside from Rooney and Owen (if he's not broken), who ARE the really good strikers for England?

Ian, no doubt.

He has his days but Chelsea destroyed any potential he had, I'd love to see Wilshere play.

Wow, Defoe that's why we should play him above Heskey

DEFOE!!

2-1. Superb finish.

To be fair, we don't have many, we have some decent average ones.

However, bar Spain I don't think too many countries have 2 really good ones, I mean I'd take our strikers any day over Italy's.

Fishdoll gives Kurt a cookie. Olic scored again! (Croatia 3 - 1 Bielorussia)

As long as Rooney is fit I don't think it matters who plays up front with him, he can work with anyone - like Owen used to be able to. The problem is when Rooney is out, we've not got much. Defoe, Bent, Crouch, Owen, Agbonlahor.. then who?

Carlton Cole?! Seriously, we might as well start playing Jermaine Beckford and Rickie Lambert...

(What about Karl Fletcher? Or has he retired?)

Refreshing to see England not just giving up after going behind, we're back to our old battling ways! Rob Green is goal has been superb today, he could do nothing about either goal but has made some great saves.

Agreed, would pick him above Foster any day after seeing a few of his performances.

Fishdoll um. It's just a friendly and all but right now it's Macedonia (or more precisely Goran Pandev) 2 - 0 Spain. Bit of a surprise, that scoreline.

Disappointing 2nd half from Ash, barely touched the ball. Milner on for his England debut after 50-odd appearances for the U21s! YAY!

I didn't know he's never played for the first team, I could have sworn he had.

Carlton Cole nearly proved me wrong that would have been some goal.

As for the scoreline Tennie just posted, wow, who are Spain playing?!

That's why he's playing and not them. That was genius to be fair, very unlucky not to score!

If Eurosport is right, it's mostly the first team - the only big change I see is Pepe Reina in goal.

And I thought England were bad with effort in friendlies!

Would be interesting to see Huntelaar from a purely Milan point of view.

DEFOE!

Super effort from Milner there, then a super cross!

Huntelaar on..

2-2 Defoe! Again! Give him a start next time Fabio!

Great play from Milner.

Here comes Huntelaar...

FT 2-2. Surprisingly we were the better side over the 90 I reckon, Capello really has done better than I could ever have imagined. Nice to see Jimmy have a good debut.

Downside of tonight is our lead in our WCQ group has been cut to 7 points. But with only 3 games remaining and a massively superior GD, we can't mess it up again. Can we?

Just seeing the 2nd goal back, I like how Defoe didn't even aknowledge Milner after he bust his *** off to get the ball and then set him up. Self absorbed tosser.

So, FT Mexico 2 - 1 USA

Not a painful result given that it was at the Azteca in Mexico City, where the US has never won. Close game, a brawl or two, some nasty fouls, etc. Mexico got the winner in the 85th or so. Good game to watch.

EDIT: And, totally unrelated, here are datasport's player ratings for Italy.

Buffon 7 - Aveva detto di volersi migliorare ancora. Oggi lo ha dimostrato con alcune buone parate.
Zambrotta 7 - Spinge come un forsennato sulla fascia destra. E’ in grande forma, speriamo di vederlo così anche in campionato.
Santon 6 - Entra per far rifiatare Zambrotta mostrandosi diligente.
Cananvaro 7 - Meriterebbe un dieci solo per aver superato Maldini nelle presenze in Nazionale ma qui valutiamo solo la prestazione. Bravo a dirigere con scioltezza la retroguardia.
Chiellini 6.5 - Sotto le direttive del capitano offre una buona prova, qualche sbavatura che però riesce sempre a correggere.
Criscito 6 - Non spinge come Zambrotta, fatica a proporsi in avanti nonostante una buona prova in fase difensiva.
Camoranesi s.v. - Costretto a lasciare il campo prematuramente per un dolore alla caviglia.
Pepe 6.5 - come si dice in questi casi mette un po’ di “sale” alla gara anche se al 90’ ha l’occasione più ghiotta della gara e l’attaccante dell’Udinese la manda fuori.
Pirlo 6.5 - Metronomo del centrocampo parte a razzo per verticalizzare immediatamente gli attaccanti. A fine primo tempo gli manca il fiato.
D’Agostino 6 - Nello stesso ruolo di Pirlo si mostra un ottimo cambio.
Palombo 6.5 - Ha davvero un incredibile quantità di fiato. 90’ da vero corridore.
Marchsio 7 - Per essere all’esordio offre una prestazione straordinaria, verticalizza e poi si propone in avanti. Sfiora anche la rete.
Grosso 6.5 - Pochi minuti a disposizione conditi però da alcune progressioni davvero strepitose.
Gilardino 5.5 -E’ l’unico che nei primi 20’, i migliori della gara, non ingrana. Troppo distante dagli schemi di Lippi.
Iaquinta 5.5 - Pronti via e nel giro di quarto d’ora si mangia tre occasioni da rete nitide. Gli manca l’incisività.
Rossi 6.5 - Pepito Rossi si scatena come al solito, le occasioni migliori passano dai suoi piedi.
Quagliarella 5.5 - Non convince in pieno, ha giocato da poco col Napoli e durante la preparazione avere così tante partite una dietro all’altra non fa bene.

T&T scrape a win against El Salvador. YAY!

Criscito got a 6?? I'm sure now that the guy who comes up with these is the same one that's randomly picked to write about zodiac signs...

The kid was amazing, great debut.

I highly doubt it.

If he was that amazing, I can't see him being given such an average rating.

It's Marchisio they gave the kudos to (a 7 on his debut). Lippi went out of his way to praise him in the interview I saw a bit ago on skytg24.

What the **** do you know, you rate Materazzi!

So? Is this not a player who has won 3 consecutive Serie A titles, a World Cup and scored a tonne of goals from the back as well as being a player from one of the best defences in the league?

Its the best defence because he rarely plays in it

10 goals in a season, as a defender, when he rarely plays. Maybe Matrix should be put up front then, that's a lethal record.

3 consecutive Serie A titles--> Due to inter's cheating (& possible setting up of Calciopoli)
Leading to the sucking of other major teams and reffing in their favour

a World Cup--> In what he looked good in for the very first time in his life - Thanks to Cannavaro's Brilliance!

scored a tonne of goals from the back--> It's simply not his job (doesn't make him a good player - and Certainly NOT a good Defender!)

being a player from one of the best defences in the league-->Largely disputable - Also, ** see han's response **

Kurt it's surely disappointing (to say the very least) that you back such a Loser!
Not to mention him being Immature / Arrogant / Pr!<K!5h! / Sh!ty!