New York Sports Fan Blog

England entered the 2012 Euro’s with low expectations, as well as a fresh new look, but so far are showing a lot of promise for the future. England entered the tournament with a roster featuring new names, as well as a brand new coach. But what could of helped the team the most is that for the first time in a long time the spot light, and all the high expectations to bring a trophy home wasn’t there. While their game play hasn’t been anything phenomenal, they are showing moments of brilliance, having scored five goals and conceding three. But what might be the most note-worthy isn’t the goals, but who and how they are scoring them. In the 3-2 win over Sweden last week, all the goals were scored by players under the age of 24. England have been dominated at times this tournament, but more importantly have executed on the changes that they have had. What was once a more run down, older English national team is now getting a stronger youth cast to help support players like Wayne Rooney. England have always been a little more of a defensive team, but now players like Danny Welbeck, and Andy Carroll (in the air) provide options to help produce goals for the team. While England is far from being the world’s best team right now, they have the talent in their young players, which is something they haven’t had since the early 2000’s to really help in making them a strong contender for the Euros and World Cup’s in the coming years. And this tournament provides a great testing ground to figure things out, because of the lack of expectations that are on the team.

New Jersey’s Giuseppe Rossi was selected Tuesday for defending champion Italy’s 30-man preliminary World Cup roster, while Francesco Totti and Luca Toni have been left off.

Rossi, a 23-year-old forward for Villarreal in Spain, was born in Teaneck and went to Clifton High School. He was eligible to play for both Italy and the United States and opted to play for the Azzurri instead of the Americans. He was the only played selected based outside of Italy.

Totti retired from Italy’s national team after helping win the 2006 World Cup. Toni was the Azzurri’s primary forward in 2006 and at the 2008 European Championship, but lost his place when he ran into problems at Bayern Munich to start this season.

Toni transferred to Roma in January and has helped the club keep pressure on leader Inter Milan heading into the final weekend of the Serie A season.

Coach Marcello Lippi chose seven forwards, including Marco Borriello, Antonio Di Natale, Alberto Gilardino, Vincenzo Iaquinta, Giampaolo Pazzini and Fabio Quagliarella.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com