Let the coach choose its own players…

April 26th, 2006 | by: Daniel | Comments Off

That is what Oscar Harrison, the president of the Paraguayan Football Association is repeating every time that the press ask him something about the World Cup. During this week, Harrison call to a press conference where he begged to the press stop putting pressure on Anibal Ruiz about which players he should take to Germany. He also criticized the publications on some newspaper where they public surveys about if the old players should be in the World Cup list. Finally he affirmed that the player list will be announced on May 15.

The controversy about the questions if the older players are in shape to play in the World Cup begun last week when the main newspapers started this surveys about what are the opinions of the fans respect the presence of the historic players instead of the younger ones. But the things heated up when Jose Luis Chilavert launched his missiles against his ex-team mates, primarily against Gamarra, Acuña and Cardozo.

Jose Cardozo, who is not playing in the last games of its team (San Lorenzo, Argentina) told today to the press that he is full recovered from an injury and although that he is not playing in his team, he is in good shape and he trusts that in the next friendly games of the national team he will recover all the time lost. “El Pepe” also criticized the press because they are focusing only the issue of the older players instead of informing about other World Cup “stuffs”. Finally he said that he is very responsible with the team, and if he believed that he is not in shape, he would renounce to the team.

Although nobody can denied the importance of having experience players in the team, the worries of us, the fans, is that some of these players aren’t playing in their teams, like Cardozo and Acuña, and because their age and the wear out of the high competition probably they will need to be change during the game. We don’t know if this presence is that necessary. But still we need to outweigh the benefits of having an experience player in the bench or in team to put in a game when the things are heating up or when you need someone with calm that can handle the pressure, a World Cup can be intimidating to any player.