And then there was 31....

In a presentation in Syndey's Qantas hangers, Pim Verbeek today named is preliminary 31 man squad for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. From a personal point of view there were certainly no surprises at most, in the names that were provided. That said I am sure lips are tingling with the words of "Shane who?".

I must admit I can't recall having heard of the youngster Shane Lowry, which then prompted me to turn to my good friend wikipedia. As it turns out he moved to Aston Villa in 2005 and has since been loaned out to Plymouth Argyle and more recently Leeds Utd where he assisted them in achieving promotion. Shane was born in Australia, however he has also represented the Republic of Ireland at the U17 and U21 level due to his heritage.

I am sure there will much conjection over omissions and inclusions, but all in all my opinion is that Pim has got it right. Simon Colosimo would have to think himself unlucky, and there are many that believe that big Sash Ognenovski should have been a front runner over Micheal Beachamp. The one highlight from today's announcement for this World Cup is that Australia has certainly improved the quality of depth, however the sustainability of that depth I am sure will be tested over the next World Cup campaign.

For those that missed the announcement, the Australian 31 man squad is as follows:

Michael Beachamp, Marco Bresciano, Tim Cahill, Nick Carle, David Carney, Scott Chipperfield, Jason Culina, Brett Emerton, Adam Federici, Eugene Galekovic, Richard Garcia, Vincenzo Grella, James Holland, Brett Holman, Mile Jedinak, Brad Jones, Joshua Kennedy, Harry Kewell, Shane Lowry, Scott McDonald, Mark Milligan, Craig Moore, Lucas Neill, Jade North, Thomas Oar, Nikita Rukavytsya, Mark Schwarzer, Carl Valeri, Dario Vidosic, Luke Wilkshire, Rhys Williams.

It was quite clear from Pim that Galekovic would be the 4th goalkeeper, but was introduced in the event one of the keepers was not available. He also mentioned that Australia would be taking 26 or 27 players to cover for any injuries etc to the final 23 man squad presented to Fifa. No doubt about it, the final cut is most certainly going to be hard to swallow for those 3 or 4 that don't make the plane next month.