One of my favorite Wanderers has traveled to the England training base. Today it was announced that Gary Cahill will be in Fabio Capello's squad for the third and fourth time respectively. England face Slovenia in a friendly match at Wembley on Saturday, then on Wednesday take on Croatia in a World Cup Qualifier also at Wembley, which would assure their place in the tournament if they took away all three points. Because of the importance of the match on Wednesday, and the fact that both John Terry and Wes Brown are suffering from knocks and Rio Ferdinand is out, it is likely that Cahill will get his first senior cap on Saturday.
His call up also means that 10 first team Wanderers will be away on international duty this weekend. They are as follows: Gretar Steinsson for Iceland, Johan Elmander for Sweden, Jussi Jaaskelainen for Finland, Sam Ricketts for Wales, Ali Al Habsi for Oman, Lee Chung-Yong for South Korea, Jlloyd Samuel for Trinidad and Tobago, Fabrice Muamba for England's U21s, Ivan Klasnic for Croatia, and obviously Gary Cahill for England. So good luck to all our far-flung Trotters during this international break! Except, of course, Ivan Klasnic, as he will be playing against England, I hope he has a good game but loses badly.