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WARSAW, June 21 (Reuters) - Poland’s friendly against Germany in September has been switched to Gdansk because Warsaw’s National Stadium, due to host the opening game of Euro 2012, is still not ready, the Polish Football Association (PZPN) said on Tuesday.

Construction delays to stadiums have been a major problem for Poland, who will co-host the June 8-July 1 2012 tournament with Ukraine.

The opening of the Warsaw’s top stadium, which will also stage a Euro 2012 semi-final, has been postponed from June to November.

Poland have already moved a June friendly with France because of delays in works on the Gdansk stadium, which is due to open in three weeks.

“Today we are confident that the September game with Germany will take place in that beautiful stadium (in Gdansk),” deputy head of PZPN Zdzislaw Krecina said in a statement. (Reporting by Patryk Wasilewski, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Labels: friendly, Polands, ready, Reuters, stadium

MADRID (AP)—Spain internationals from Barcelona and Real Madrid gathered Tuesday and vowed to put the bad blood from a series of ill-tempered matches behind them.

The World Cup winner plays the United States in a friendly on Saturday before traveling to Venezuela three days later for its first internationals since the four meetings in 18 days between bitter rivals Barcelona and Madrid over April and May.

The two Spanish clubs have a combined 11 players in the squad, even though Barcelona regulars Carles Puyol and Xavi Hernandez will both miss this trip.

Madrid defender Sergio Ramos says “we have to forget this matter … it’s in the past and we have to worry about the national team now.”

Labels: clasicos, forget, internationals, ready, Spains

The timing is, of course, suspect, coming as it does just two days after a one-sided derby defeat to Celtic and fewer than 24 hours before the team left for a decisive clash with Sporting Lisbon. But then it was Rangers' announcement to make. It would be foolish if the club had chosen to deliver the message at a time when it would not be able to have the maximum positive impact. If confirmation of McCoist's promotion re-energises both the players and fans, then so much the better. As McCoist re-emphasised yesterday, the team is still involved in four competitions. Unlikely though it is, he might step into the shoes of a manager who has just completed the quadruple. Then the pressure truly will be on the genial 48-year-old with the winning smile and attractive personality.

McCoist has always enjoyed a reputation for being lucky. He was the original Goldenballs. But he hasn't just walked blithely into this new job. The truth is he has worked just as hard as those managers who are praised for having earned an apprenticeship in the lower leagues. He has been at Smith's side since January 2005, when he was recruited to assist Smith with Scotland. It wasn't a plum job and let's face it, McCoist could have had an easier, probably more lucrative time of it carrying out the many television roles which he had to drop when he moved to become Smith's full-time assistant at Ibrox, four years ago.

He had decided to play a long game, having taken his coaching badges towards the end of his career. He was happy to exist in Smith's shadow, emerging only to front irregular press briefing sessions. These would normally be before and after Scottish Cup matches. The most recent one which he handled before yesterday's announcement, made in the Ibrox Blue Room, was following the 2-2 Scottish Cup draw with Celtic earlier this month. He again impressed with his honest assessment of what had unfolded that afternoon.

To his eyes, he said, it was possible to agree with the referee's assertion that Steven Naismith had dived in the incident which brought about the striker's second booking of the afternoon. Like Smith at Parkhead on Sunday, he could also probably see the worrying signs of a decline and he was again confronted with an uncomfortable truth just a few days ago.

It isn't, then, the inheritance he might have wished for. But who gets to choose when to become manager of a club such as Rangers? McCoist has already known the hard times at Ibrox. He not only survived, but prospered. He was jeered by his own fans during a home Scottish Cup defeat to Dundee in 1985. A glaring miss against Internazionale in San Siro in a Uefa Cup tie also made fans fear that the young striker bought from Sunderland was not going to make the grade, although his goal-scoring form was hard to deny. He was top goalscorer in each season between 1983-84 and 1988-89, but Graeme Souness's appointment as manager led to another spell when someone less hardy than McCoist might easily have fallen prey to self-doubt. Souness often left him on the substitutes' bench and became just the latest manager to despair at his time-keeping. But he truly does define irrepressible, the word so often used to describe McCoist.

Labels: Blueeyed, McCoist, ready, Scotsman

Bobby Zamora is again targeting an England place after making his Fulham return on Sunday.

The striker broke an ankle against Wolves in September, but has come back with goals against Everton and Brighton for the Cottagers’ reserves.

And Zamora, 30, remains hopeful about his England international chances.

“I think there’s a place for my sort of player with the way I play, as I like to hold the ball up,” he said.

“They have (Andy) Carroll now, but I would like to think that I am up there with him – and also Carlton Cole.

“Obviously I will look to get back playing for Fulham, but who knows after that? If I get my goals, there is no reason I can’t play for England.”

Labels: Carroll, compete, England, MirrorFootballcouk, place, ready, Zamora

England have not won in Cardiff since 2003 when Johnson himself was skipper, but new boy Wood is far from fazed by the prospect of playing in front of the Welsh crowd.

"I am really excited," he told Sky Sports News. "There's no better place to make your debut. I'd rather be thrown in at the deap end that way and just try and hit the ground running.

"I just want to get there as quickly as possible now. I'm a little bit anxious, so the quicker the game kicks off, the better for me."

The 24-year-old 6ft 5in forward was given the news of his call-up by Johnson at England's training camp in Portugal last week.

"It took a while to wipe the smile off my face, I think it's still there now. I am still pinching myself," he admitted. "I think you have to, especially when you are around some of the guys - World Cup winners, Lions players.

"It is a big environment to be involved with. But also I think you've got to acclimatise really quickly because I need to be a part of it now."

Wood impressed Johnson by his attitude after joining up with the senior squad from the Saxons following injuries to Lewis Moody and Tom Croft.

Wood added: "I just dived in head first. I don't think that was any surprise to people who know me. That is the only way I know, so I just got stuck into the training, got my head down and worked hard and it's obviously made a reasonable impression."

Labels: Cardiff, cauldron, ready, SkySports

(UKPA) – 1 hour ago

Ireland coach Declan Kidney has warned France that Jamie Heaslip is champing at the bit to make his comeback in Sunday's RBS 6 Nations clash.

Heaslip, who has recovered from an ankle injury, will be making his first appearance since December. The talented Lions back row slots in at number eight with Leinster colleague Sean O'Brien moving to blindside flanker and Denis Leamy dropping to the bench.

"Jamie's a good player and brings his own skill set. That'll give us variation in the team, Jamie trained fully on Monday and Tuesday, so there was no need not to select him. He's looking forward to it," said Kidney.

Kidney was reluctant to make any other changes, even though Ireland were almost the victims of one of the championship's great upsets last Saturday before scraping home 13-11 against Italy.

"I wasn't satisfied with the way we played against Italy. We can play a lot better," he said.

"But the players performed in such a way that meant they deserved another go. Sometimes you need to back your players and after the way they went about their business, that's what I'm doing.

"There were times last week when we off-loaded to people who weren't in better positions than the ball carrier. The co-ordination between combinations takes time to bed in and that's why we've gone with the same team."

France warmed up for Sunday's showdown in Dublin with a dashing 34-21 victory over Scotland, a performance that saw their post-autumn obituaries being hastily re-written. Ireland believe their best chance of upsetting the Grand Slam champions rests with attempting to beat them at their own game.

"With the way the laws of the game are now, if you stand off France and try to do damage limitation, you'll be opened up," said Kidney.

"So we need to have the courage to go out and play. We'll continue to do that. These fellas are hugely self-critical and sometimes they just need to relax, trust themselves and go out and play. That's what I'm hoping they'll do on Sunday."

Labels: Association, Heaslip, Kidney, Press, ready

BERLIN, Feb 4 (Reuters) - Germany captain Michael Ballack will have to wait for a return to the national side after Joachim Loew left the midfielder out of his squad for the friendly against Italy on Wednesday.

The 34-year-old Ballack, who missed last year’s World Cup through injury, suffered another problem in September and only returned to action late last month.

“I am happy Michael is back after the two injuries,” Loew said on Friday. “He looks to be finding his rhythm. But we both know it will take some more time.”

Loew named five players from runaway league leaders Borussia Dortmund, including the uncapped 21-year-old midfielder Sven Bender.

“This is an opportunity to integrate new players,” said Loew, who has not ruled out a Ballack return and has kept him on as captain despite his long absence from the national team.

Goalkeepers: Manuel Neuer (Schalke 04), Rene Adler (Bayer Leverkusen);

Defenders: Dennis Aogo (Hamburg SV), Per Mertesacker (Werder Bremen), Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich), Holger Badstuber (Bayern Munich), Jerome Boateng (Manchester City), Mats Hummels (Borussia Dortmund), Arne Friedrich (VfL Wolfsburg), Heiko Westermann (Hamburg SV), Marcel Schmelzer (Borussia Dortmund);

Midfielders: Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich), Sami Khedira (Real Madrid), Mesut Ozil (Real Madrid), Christian Traesch (VfB Stuttgart), Mario Goetze (Borussia Dortmund), Sven Bender (Borussia Dortmund), Kevin Grosskreutz (Borussia Dortmund);

Forwards: Miroslav Klose (Bayern Munich), Mario Gomez (Bayern Munich), Thomas Mueller (Bayern Munich), Lukas Podolski (Cologne).

(Writing by Karolos Grohmann, editing by Kevin Fylan. To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com)

Labels: Ballack, friendlyLoew, Germanys, Italy, ready, Reuters

Rooney has struggled to replicate his free-scoring form of last season and his double in Tuesday's 3-1 success over Villa took his tally to five for the campaign.

The England striker has been set the target of reaching double figures by Ferguson, with Dimitar Berbatov having shouldered much of the burden this term.

However, ahead of Saturday's trip to Wolves, which pits top against bottom, Ferguson is confident the United forward is ready to enjoy a purple patch.

"Hopefully - and there's every chance with scoring the kind of goals he scored the other night - that he'll take off," said Ferguson.

"Goalscorers are like that and hopefully that's what we're going to see with Wayne. He's got 14 league games, European games and FA Cup games - he could easily get a good average.

"What Wayne has always had is a fantastic energy to play in a game. He's always committed to doing his best. The bonus is, as we saw the other night, he got two goals.

"Last season he was very consistent, but in the previous years he has scored in clutches of five or six games. But if he can get the consistency of last season then we are going to benefit from that."

Meanwhile, the United manager is confident that Rafael and Darren Fletcher will both be fit for the game at Molineux following recent head-related injuries.

He added: "Rafael should be OK. He has trained. He should be available against Wolves.

"I don't think we've got any other injuries from Tuesday night.

"With Fletcher, we'll assess him today. What happened is that his eye closed and he couldn't see the ball properly. So we had to take him off. I'm sure he'll be OK."

Labels: Fergie, ready, Rooney, SkySports