Football story by Vinnie Mitchell, Fri, 11 Nov 2005 18:48:01 GMT


GENEVA - Rio Ferdinand is back in the England squad for the friendly against Argentina on Saturday, coach Sven-Goran Eriksson has revealed. Rio makes a comeback at the expense of Arsenal defender Sol Campbell.

"Rio has been very professional, first of all. And secondly on Sunday against Chelsea I think he was excellent, he played very well. So I think he deserves to play," Eriksson told reporters at a news conference on Friday. Wayne Bridge is set to come on as a left back due to the absence of both Ashley Cole and Jamie Carragher.

But the Chelsea defender has had just 60 minutes of match practice in the Carling Cup. Eriksson said that the countdown to the World Cup finals begins with this game for England, "It's a very good test for us, not only for Wayne Rooney but also for the rest of the players. We're going to take it very seriously and I'm sure Argentina will do the same. Nobody wants to lose this game," he commented.

After successive losses to Denmark and Northern Ireland, England's qualifications as well as Eriksson's job were in jeopardy, but victories against Austria and then Poland ensured that the embarrassment was spared. "It's very good to have three or four extremely good centre-halfs, possibly the best in the world. It is up to me and my coaching staff to look at them game by game and see who is in the best form," Eriksson said adding that John Terry, Campbell and Ferdinand had no problems playing with each other and were flexible about it.

Tomorrow's match will be David Beckham's 50th match as captain of England. He appeared humbled by the honor, "To lead the team out for 50 games as captain is an amazing honour for me," said the world's best-known footballer. "But it's every player's dream to win the World Cup. It's well documented that that I haven't done as well in World Cups as I could have done and you always want to put people right. I hope I can do that in this World Cup."

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