Premier League stars in Brazil squad – Monk named Swansea manager
Scolari names Brazil 23-man squad
The highly anticipated unveiling of Brazil’s 23-man squad for the upcoming World Cup has finally occured, as coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has selected a familiar yet potentially controversial squad, which included six Premier League players. Chelsea’s David Luiz, Willian, Oscar and Ramires have all made the squad, while Manchester City’s Fernandino and Tottenham’s Paulinho have also been included.
The controversy comes in where Scolari left out house-hold names. Kaka, Ronaldinho and Robinho failed to make the grade. Further questions were raised when in-form Coutinho was not considered despite being playing a key role in Liverpool’s rise in the BPL this season, while incredibly gifted Lucas Moura of Paris Saint-Germain and key Atletico Madrid pair Miranda and Felipe Luis were also left out. It is well known that popular opinion in Brazil has a massive say in who plays for the Selecao, but given that they are the hosts, it may have been more prudent this time around to go with form rather than popularity. Brazil are one of the tournament favorites and this squad still possesses a wealth of talent, but you just have to think that without Coutinho and Moura, they lack that extra creativity, pace and directness that Brazil could use just that much more of. Questions certainly will be raised on how Miranda and F.Luis missed the boat, while Maicon still made the cut.
Should Brazil fail to make a serious challenge of adding a sixth World Cup to their footballing dossier, it is without question that many will look back to the squad Solari has chosen.
Garry Monk named Swansea manager
Former player and player/manager Garry Monk will now make the permanent jump to manager of Swansea City after he had been installed as caretaker manager after the sacking of Michael Laudrup.
While Swansea are quite a low-key club who put preference on their footballing community both inside the club and in regards to its surroundings, surely the full-time appointment of Monk will raise an eyebrow or two. Despite Laudrup’s success in his first year at the helm and guiding the Swans to the Europa League, he was ultimately sacked due to internal strife with the board. Having Monk as caretaker manager made perfect sense, much in the same way that Ryan Giggs was appointed to the same role for Manchester United. However, is Monk truly the man to try to propel Swansea into a far more secure status in the league next season?
Since his appointment as caretaker, Swansea have only scraped together a record of 4-4-8 and a goal difference that stands at even. Despite being 13th in the table, they could well finish their season closer to the drop zone than their current position suggests.
Other than their record under Monk, can he truly be trusted to bring in the proper players in the summer? Despite all the backroom troubles that Laudrup had apparently caused, his record of bringing in good signings for a relative cheaper sum was quite sound, and even though the club laid out far more money on Wilfried Bony than they may have wanted, his capture proved to be the right one as his goal scoring record at the club this season has prompted interest from bigger clubs in the Premiership. Even beyond his ability to bring in players, will he be able to keep the top players he has currently – will those players see Monk as the man in the long term to bring Swansea to another level?
There is no questioning the respect that Monk commands at the club from the top down and the admiration of the club support that he can call upon, but sometimes that just is not enough if the club has any ambitions at all of raising their level to compete in the worlds hardest footballing institution.