I counted them all out and I counted them all back again as the full 23-man squad participated in England's 1st training session post Manaus.
Heartening to see Alex Oxlade Chamberlain ditching the surgical knee brace and opt merely for heavy strapping on his injured knee. Whilst he didn't get involved in every warm up drill, the sharpness he showed initially appears to have vindicated Roy's decision to keep him here and trust his recovery time.
We got a feed of the ITV coverage in our Media Centre's radio room of Germany vs Portugal...eventually anyway, thanks to Daniel Sturridge!
He and the other Danny, Welbeck, were our interviewees today and they came into our radio room with a telly in the corner showing Sky Sports News and Sturridge quickly said 'Can't you get the game on?' as Welbeck sat down to be questioned first. As Welbeck spoke to myself and my radio colleagues, I could see Sturridge out of the corner of my eye going round the back of the telly and going into various HDMI menus and pressing buttons. And whaddaya know - as the lads were about to swap places, the picture switched to events in Salvador!
That's a Premier League footballer for you - knows his way around hi-tech good and proper. Another half an hour and he might have rigged up a cinema speaker system, got an X Box Live connection up and running and set up email accounts on screen! Genius.
It did mean I got to see the fabled ITV glass broadcast cabin looking onto Copacabana beach, which I'm told was pelted with rocks on 1st night. You could tell by the smash just behind Fabio Cannavaro's head - surely Gavin from Autoglass could fix that?...
(JINGLE: (sung) "Autoglass repair, Autoglass replace!")
FVO "Gavin, 26, technician for Autoglass";
Gavin: "My last customer thought he could get away with building a glass box in a big city not thinking what happened when David Blaine did it. Somebody saw Adrian Chiles wearing shorts, bunged a massive pebble up there in a fit of rage, and *Crrr-ACKK!!*" etc etc...
That special resin must surely do the trick, and it won't affect their no claims remember ;) I must say, seeing an ad for tea bags at half time made me wistful for a decent brew. Not a cat in Hell's chance of one here, if the one I was brought at breakfast was anything to go by...I mean, WARM milk???
Daniel Sturridge is an excellent interview subject. You can forgive some players for not relishing the prospect of us lot shoving mics in their faces and knowing what to say, but the Liverpool striker never seems phased by such things and he was typically candid and interesting to talk to today. He possesses that self belief that can be perceived as arrogance, but when you hear him talk with such affection about his family back at home, especially his mother and uncles who've clearly been important to his development as a player and a person, you can't help but warm to him.
He's made that central striking role his own, which in turn of course makes the debate about Rooney's position that much keener. Some of the papers are apparently reporting tomorrow that he's set to be dropped, but Gary Neville's staunch defence of him today and his assertion that there's always one England player at a World Cup who cops for the flak regardless (Keegan in 82, Gazza, Beckham etc) makes me wonder whether Wayne really is about to lose his place.
There's a full training session behind closed doors before us press guys arrive tomorrow lunchtime and then it'll be time to quiz Roy, although as usual, he will give little if nothing away.
Found a nice Italian restaurant this evening just up the beach from our hotel. Phil McNulty, my good friend and fellow rocker/hippie from the BBC website joined me to discuss the relative merits of the Yes album Trevor Horn sang on, how on earth certain British rock stars are still walking the earth and how usasoccerguy on Twitter was reacting to Dempsey's early goal for the USA vs Ghana. Once checking my timeline on my return to my room, I wasn't far off.
The less said about Iran vs Nigeria the better by the way. In fact I've said too much even brining it up. Sorry. But 42 goals in (as I type) and there's not even a week gone yet. That'll do nicely.
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