Chelsea’s World Cup-bound players

With the 2014 Brazil World Cup just round the corner, most country’s have named their provisional World Cup squads. Here’s a quick look at Chelsea’s World Cup-bound players.

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Thibaut Courtois, Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard form the heart of Belgium’s World Cup contingent, with Eden’s younger brother Thorgan Hazard, also a Chelsea player, on the standby list. Their youthful squad will head to the World Cup as outsiders to land the trophy, but their impressive form has not gone unnoticed, with the Belgian national team getting into the seeded pot and look very likely to progress to the knockout stages. Hazard’s form will most likely determine whether Belgium have an extended run in the competition or not.

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Chelsea’s Brazilian quartet of OscarWillian, Ramires, and David Luiz all made the cut to represent the host nation, with Chelsea being the best-represented club in the Brazilian team. All 4 players were pre-confirmed by Luiz Felipe Scolari, who had a nine month managerial stint at Chelsea, to be in his World Cup squad, suggesting that they are all likely to play starring roles this summer.  Lucas Piazon, the young Brazilian whiz on loan at Vitesse, is the only Brazilian to miss out.

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Samuel Eto’o is poised to play in his fourth World Cup for Cameroon, after being named in Volker Finke’s provisional squad. Adding the Brazil World Cup finals to his appearances in France ’98, Korea-Japan ’02 and South Africa ’10 would see him equal the Cameroonian World Cup finals record held by Rigobery Song and Jacques Songo’o. The veteran striker’s appearance at Brazil was made possible only by a dramatic U-turn on his decision to retire from international football last year, and he will also have an eye on Roger Milla’s national goals record at the finals. But Chelsea teammate David Luiz will not look to do him any favours, with the duo going head-to-head in their Group A clash.

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Chelsea’s lack of English players is extremely alarming, especially considering that Frank Lampard is one of the 2 Chelsea representatives in this English side. Our poor domestic player bias is not affecting us just yet, but should the FA come down hard with homegrown restrictions, we may just feel the increased pressure to get more English names into our squad. Gary Cahill is our other England stalwart, partnering Everton captain Phil Jagielka at the heart of England’s defence.

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Andre Schurrle‘s inclusionin the German squad should come as no surprise, considering his impressive form of late for both club and country. Schurrle netted a 4 goals in his last 3 international games, recording a memorable hat-trick against Sweden in the process. Yet, with the wealth of talent overloading Germany’s midfield, Schurrle is unlikely to see many minutes on the pitch, and would do well to make the most of his playing time.

nigeria_640“We have discovered gold from Africa” were the words proclaimed by Jose Mourinho in his first reign at the club. 9 years on, it is the very same man leaving John Obi Mikel on the bench for majority of Chelsea’s matches, and looks likely to bring an end to the Chelsea chapter of Mikel’s career. Mikel has enjoyed the best part of his career here, playing an instrumental role in our Road to Munich, and sometimes looking like the man he was bought to replace, Claude Makelele. But he is yet to prove himself to be anywhere near the midfield lynchpin’s standard consistently, and Nigeria would be counting on him to deliver the goods at this year’s World Cup.

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Despite failing to make the cut for the friendly win over Italy in March, Fernando Torres has joined Cesar “Dave” Azpilicueta on the plane to Brazil. Torres has had a typically stormy season, delivering some rather important goals like that against Galatasaray in Turkey, but also looking like a spent force at times. His inconsistency has drawn much unfair criticism from the press, and with the inclusion of Diego Costa in the squad and Del Bosque’s preference for a striker-less formation, seems likely to remain on the bench. Dave has had a phenomenal season, and with the dwarf of talented Spanish right-backs coming through the ranks of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico, seems quite likely to take a spot in the first team. Both players will be looking to emulate Spain’s South Africa success.

 

With that, I have come to the end of my report, hope you enjoyed it. #ktbffh

CFC360

8 thoughts on “Chelsea’s World Cup-bound players

  1. Neri Abayomi

    Hate me or Love me
    This is what Jose succeeded in doing during his second coming.
    – He derailed Ashley’s world cup chances, abruptly brought an halt to his international career without the bliss of a bow out in Brazil.
    – Mata, lost his confidence, almost lost his world cup spot, and he was eventually shipped off to a rival that refuses to sell their talisman to us, y we sold ours to them.
    – KdB was nt given a fair chance to fight for his spot in the team- n he was sold.
    – Oscar is running on empty- void of any form of form for long spells of the season.
    -He loses Hazard’s confidence in the team’s ability to play attacking football that can break defences.
    -Under him Luiz has nt been able to hit trademark freekicks n volleys
    -Under him Ramires lost his attacking verve.
    -Under him the hope of a nation was tampered with by his refusal to play Mikel more often which he deserve.
    -Under him Torres regressed from a 20 goals plus to little above 10 goals.
    – Cesar wasted much of the season in the LB role when he cud b ruling the Right flank all season.
    – Cahill and Terry improved under him no doubt.

    He ended up doing d same tin we v bin doing without a major trophy tho
    3rd place

  2. Good article. Inaddition, Moses & Omeru included in Nigeria and Astu in Gana squads. We hope best wish to all blue players in WC.

  3. Onyeka Emokam

    Sometimes u alwys sound like ur drunk admin,So u forgot that Victor Moses nd Kenneth Omeruah are also chelsea players nd they’re also frm Nigeria to the world cup???

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  5. You didn’t mention Kenneth omeruo currently on loan at middlesbourough and a regular in the Nigerian squad

  6. Uloko Obekpa John

    I love Chelsea

  7. Azpilicueta will play in 1st team..nd Schurrle is in better f0rm than p0d0lski , s0, i think he’l
    l als0 be in 1st team..!!

  8. Anonymous

    chelsea will regret it if Mikel should leave. him and Lampard are still needed in our midfield

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