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Today Roy Hodgson unveiled the squad that will heroically lead England to the round of 16 before losing on penalties. There'll be more than enough places on the web spewing many many paragraphs on the squad, who is and isn't there and just what their chances are so I'll save you all of that. Here's the squad.
CONFIRMED: Roy Hodgson has unveiled his @England squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil #3Lions pic.twitter.com/eEdGnD5MBe
— England (@england) May 12, 2014
But just what does it all mean for Toronto FC? Well it's good news, great news and a little bit of bad news.
Yes, there he is, in the standby section off in the corner, Jermain Defoe was selected as part of the 30 man provisional squad. Good news for him personally, though a bit more investigation suggests that really it's bad news as he's still a long shot to be making the 23 man squad for the tournament itself. Injuries aside, the 23 players who actually get pictured are the ones who'll be going to Brazil.
It's also good and bad news for the marketing department, who now get to continue to link Defoe and Toronto FC's name to the England squad for a few weeks more at least, as well as Brazil and the U.S teams for Julio Cesar and Michael Bradley respectively. Bad news though that they won't get the ultimate hit of seeing a TFC player actually at the World Cup in the England squad.
The standby category is great news for the team where it counts though, on the field, as unless a sudden plague of some kind descends on England's forwards, Defoe shouldn't miss any games at all.
With 4 goals already this season, Defoe is clearly Toronto's main goal threat, in fact currently the only TFC striker to have scored a goal, so this is a very good thing for the 4 remaining league games between now and the MLS break. Home games against New York, Columbus and San Jose and an away game against Kansas City will now appear more winnable with the option of playing the only striker TFC have who's currently figured out how to score this season. The last thing an already spluttering TFC offence (averaging 1 goal a game so far) would need is to have to rely on Gilberto and Luke Moore for it's goals. This will help to ensure that TFC can at least stay within striking distance of the playoff spots before everyone comes back from the World Cup and the season truly gets going in July.
Anyway, congratulations to Jermain, kind of. If injuries happen, well hopefully he'll have gone on such a goalscoring streak in the next couple of weeks that Hodgson has no choice but to bring him in so he can score the goals that carry England to the title. hahahahahahahah never mind. That's unlikely, so instead let's hope Defoe's the type of player who'll carry a grudge about it and make it his life mission to prove just how wrong Roy was.