England, August 12: Fabio Capello finds himself in the midst of a goalkeeper crisis less than a year from the start of the World Cup finals but last night the England manager ruled out naturalising Arsenal’s Spanish No 1 Manuel Almunia even as a back-up. Instead he threw his support behind the 39-year-old David James still to be No 1 come South Africa next summer.
Having lost Ben Foster to injury after an unconvincing performance for Manchester United in the Community Shield game on Sunday, Capello said that he had no doubts about the identity of his first-choice goalkeeper come next June, provided England qualify. “I know who it will be,” he said, and given that Robert Green and Joe Hart have five caps behind them, and Foster only two, he left little room for doubt that it would be James.
The Almunia question has pursued Capello since he took over the job and, privately, the coach has always felt that the first step was up to the man from Pamplona. He was eligible to apply for a British passport come this summer after five years in England and had Almunia applied he might even have been considered. But it is clear that Capello now regards that opportunity as having passed. He said: “Almunia, for me, is Spanish. He’s Spanish and plays for the Arsenal team.”
–Agencies