"The Nations Unleashed" (Part 2)

After favorites Brazil, I'll now move on to another big favorite and second seeds England.

Hmm- now England.. I don't think there is much to say about them. They are a star studded team after all. When there is a comparison made among players , England definitely has some of the world's greatest players. They have Wayne Rooney, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, David Beckham, Michael Owen, John Terry...... That does seem to be a big list of stars doesn't it? Yep. But the only thing is these Star studded players are never that good on terms with each other. That's the problem when there are too many stars in one team. For all you'd know, they might be the best players in the world and yet lose to some pathetic, unheard of team like Northern Ireland.

Forgetting this problem, England are one of THE favorites for winning the Cup, even with Wayne Rooney out of action. I think they have enough stars without Rooney who can do the job for England. Anyway, forgetting the cuurent day England, let us go back a bit into the past. England until now have won the World Cup only once, that is in 1966 and have not been able to qualify thrice after its entering the World Cup in 1950. Let me give you a factfile on my favorite player Wayne Rooney, even though he most likely won't be playing for the first few matches.

FACTFILE

• Wayne Rooney became England's youngest player ever at 17 years and 111 days against Australia in February 2003.
• Rooney is considered one of the most precocious of the present lot of footballers.
• Former Everton prodigy, he is now a key player for Manchester United.
  
• He is infamous for his foul mouth. He picked up 12 red cards in the 2003-04 season.
• On March 9, 2006, Rooney signed the largest sports book deal with publishers HarperCollins. His yet to be published autobiography has earned him a record advance payment of 7.5 million Euros.
  
• He is supposed to be featured on more than 500 million Coke cans.
• England Coach, Sven Goran Eriksson described him as the greatest teenage football player since the great Pele in the 1958 World Cup.
  
• He has won the PFA Junior player of the year twice, consecutively.

Hmm.. those are my facts on Wayne Rooney. I'll catch up on other teams later. Bye for now!