LONDON - FIFA released the official squad lists for the 32 teams that will
play in next month's World Cup.
Each team registered 23 players for the tournament in Germany, making 736
players eligible to play at soccer's premier event, which kicks off June 9 in
Munich.
The squad lists were released Thursday on FIFA's World Cup Web site, with
names, positions and shirt numbers for all players.
The FIFA deadline for submitting rosters was Monday, and most of the teams
made their squad announcements public on that day.
The only change from the announced players to the official rosters came from
Croatia, where Ivan Buljat of Dinamo Zagreb was replaced by Niko Kovac of Hertha
Berlin.
According to FIFA, 47 percent of the registered players compete in England,
Italy, Spain, France and Germany — the top five leagues in Europe. The English
Premier League has 102 players chosen for their respective national teams.
Seven of the competitors will be taking part in their fourth World Cup,
including Claudio Reyna and Kasey Keller of the United States, Oliver Kahn of
Germany, Mohammed Al-Deayea and Sami Al-Jaber of Saudi Arabia, and Cafu and
Ronaldo of Brazil.
Keller is the only player going to Germany who participated in the 1990 World
Cup. He missed the 1994 tournament.
Only Cafu, Al-Deayea and Al-Jaber actually played in the last three
tournaments.
England forward Theo Walcott, 17, will be the youngest player in the
competition and could become the youngest to score if he finds the net in
Germany.
Tunisia goalkeeper Ali Boumnijel, 40, will be the fifth oldest player to
participate after Roger Milla of Cameroon, Pat Jennings of Northern Ireland,
Peter Shilton of England and Dino Zoff of Italy
