All squads for Euro 2012 confirmed - Inside World Football

By David Gold

May 31 – The teams competing at this summer’s European Championship have all confirmed their squads for the tournament.

Tuesday (May 29) was the deadline for submitting final squad lists, and there was a number of interesting choices by coaches across the continent.

Slaven Bilić, the Croatia coach leaving after the Euros, omitted defender Dejan Lovren and forward Nikola Kalinić.

Lovren misses out due to injury, and is replaced by Jurica Buljat of Maccabi Haifa.

Italy’s squad raised eyebrows as Juventus defender Leonardo Bonucci (pictured above, left) was selected despite being mentioned in the latest match-fixing investigation being carried out in Italy.

Zenit St Petersburg left back Domenico Criscito was dropped because of the investigation to clear his name.

Inter Milan defender Andrea Ranocchia was another significant absentee, while Antonio di Natale (pictured above, right), Italy’s top scorer in recent seasons, is selected despite never having played under coach Cesare Prandelli.

Andrea Pirlo and Claudio Marchisio are both called up after enjoying superb seasons with Juventus, helping the Bianconeri win Serie A unbeaten.

Vladimir Darida was picked ahead of Daniel Pudil in midfield for the Czech Republic.

Michal Bilek’s biggest concern though was up front where the Czechs struggle to score goals – their left back Michal Kadlec was their top scorer during qualifiers.

Former Liverpool forward Milan Baros was selected alongside Tomas Pekhart, David Lafata and Tomas Necid.

Braga duo Custódio and Lopes were included in the Portugal squad after an impressive season for their club, despite neither being capped before.

Coach Paulo Bento, like Bilek, has a team who can struggle for goals without a top class striker, and so has called up 20-year-old Benfica forward Nélson Oliveira.

Portugal have perhaps the toughest task of all this summer – they are pitted with two of the three favourites, the Netherlands and Germany.

They also take on Denmark, whom they lost to in the qualifying group, but forward Cristiano Ronaldo (pictured below), arguably the best player going to Euro 2012, is confident of progress.

“We know we are in the group of death with Germany, Netherlands and the team who knocked us out [to the playoff] in the qualification phase,” said the Real Madrid forward, who scored 46 goals in La Liga this season.

“Those are going to be some very tough matches but I am confident we will go past the group phase.

“I know we will not be favourites.”

Jetro Willems, 18, was included in Bert van Marwijk’s Netherlands squad despite never having played for the national team before.

Van Marwijk has a strong squad including Robin van Persie, Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder, but could not find a place for Ajax duo Siem de Jong and Vurnon Anita.

Denmark’s preparations were dealt a blow as Thomas Sorensen suffered an injury in a friendly last weekend and was subsequently ruled out of the Euros.

Instead Morten Olsen has chosen to take Kasper Schmeichel, the Leicester City goalkeeper, as well as Manchester United’s Anders Lindegaard and Stephen Andersen of Evian.

Olsen has a talented and youthful looking squad which includes Ajax midfielder Christian Eriksen (pictured below), one of the potential stars of this summer’s tournament.

Johan Elmander was chosen by Erik Hamren for his Sweden squad despite suffering an injury, but John Guidetti was not picked.

Guidetti has suffered an infection and has been left out despite being one of the stars of the Dutch Eridivise season, scoring regularly while on loan at Feyenoord.

The attack minded Hamren has plenty of other forwards in his squad though, with Ola Toivonen, Marcus Rosenberg called up, whilst they also boast another gifted youngster expected to showcase his quality this summer, AZ Aalkmar’s Rasmus Elm.

Co-hosts Ukraine are another suffering injury problems with first choice goalkeeper Oleksandr Shovkovsky out of the tournament with a shoulder injury.

They have instead turned to Shakhtar Donetsk’s Andriy Pyatov in what will be a challenging group, where they face France, England and Sweden.

Despite being the first team to name their squad, England were forced to make a late change to their 23-man selection, with the injured Gareth Barry replaced by Everton’s Phil Jagielka.

Group A features Greece, Poland and the Czech Republic, while Group C consists of Spain, Italy, the Republic of Ireland and Croatia.

Spain beat Germany in the final of Euro 2008, and the top two teams in each group will progress to the quarterfinals.

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