2010 World Cup: England, Italy and Spain friendly matches calendar

World Cup 2010: the national teams have chosen the friendly matches on the way to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

For England, coach Fabio Capello needs to find the good equilibrium of the team and a new leader. As a matter of fact, even if Chelsea's coach Carlo Ancelotti said that: "John Terry will be the captain of the team forever", the compatriot Capello punished Terry for the sexual scandal assigning the captain rule to Rio Ferdinand.

There is an high expectation on England performance in this Tournament: for this reason the first pre-tournament friendly match is against Egypt, who just won the 2010 Africa Cup. The match is scheduled for March, 3rd at Wembley Stadium in London.

The second friendly match will be played on May 24 versus Mexico. Also this match will be played at Wembley Stadium in London. On the other side, the coach of the World Champion 2006, Marcello Lippi, has his last chance to check the physical condition of the players and trying to define the 22 players who will join the World Cup. Has he already said, he will make the list based on the players who already played the qualifying matches. However there are 5/6 spots still available, based on the Serie A performance of the single players.

The calendar of friendly matches of the Italian National team: 2 March 2010: Italy – Cameroon (Monaco) 3 June 2010: Italy – Mexico (Bruxelles) 5 June 2010: Italy – Switzerland (Geneve) It's unusual to see the none of the friendly matches of the Italian national team will be played in Italy.

Another interesting calendar of matches is the Spain's one. They are considered the favorite teams in this edition, together with Brazil, since they won the last European Championship and reached the third place at the Confederations Cup in South Africa. However we won't probably see Fernando Torres (injured) in the next game. The calendar of friendly matches of the Italian National team: 3 March 2010: Spain – France (Paris) 29 May 2010: Spain – Liechtenstein (Vaduz) 3 June 2010: Spain – Egypt (Innsbruck)

• 2010 World Cup Qualifying results and fixtures

• 2010 World Cup Qualifying groups standings.

• Calendar and results – World Cup 2010

• Groups and Standings – World Cup 2010

• World Cup Winners List.

• News on World Cup 2010.

• World Cup Ball.