“Ronaldinho, Mesut Özil, Thierry Henry… it’s the World Cup of the over-35 legends!”
World Cup-winning superstars of the past are set to compete in a new 35+ World Cup this summer, according to reports.
On the 5th (KST), the British Daily Mail exclusively reported, “A new World Cup for the over-35s will be held in England this summer and will feature a number of soccer legends. According to the report, the 35+ World Cup will be an eight-team tournament featuring past FIFA World Cup winners England, Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Uruguay, with seven matches to be played in the same stadium over a week in early June. While no venues have been finalized yet, the Daily Mail reports that “talks are currently underway with several top Premier League clubs.
The tournament will be organized by the Elite Players Group (EPG), which was founded last year by a group of top-level former soccer players and sports CEOs, and will be called the EPG Cup. Only players who are “over the age of 35 and have earned a national team cap or played at least 100 games in the first division” are eligible to participate in the tournament.
EPG founder Steve McManaman will lead England, while Esteban Cambiasso (Argentina), Emerson (Brazil), Christian Carambreux (France), Kevin Kurani (Germany), Marco Materazzi (Italy), Michel Salgado (Spain), and Diego Lugano (Uruguay) will captain their respective teams. The provisional list, obtained by the Daily Mail, includes five Ballon d’Or winners – England’s Michael Owen, Brazil’s Kaka, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo, and Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro.
England’s Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, David James, Frank Lampard, and Robbie Fowle are among the eight nations competing in this exciting World Cup, along with Brazil’s Cafu and 바카라사이트 Roberto Carlos, France’s Thierry Henry and Marcel Desai, Argentina’s Hernan Crespo and Pablo Zabaleta, Germany’s Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira, Spain’s David Villa and Carlos Puyol, Italy’s Francesco Totti, and Uruguay’s Diego Forlan.
The EPG Cup will be played 11-a-side, but matches will be played over 70 minutes instead of 90 minutes, and teams will be allowed to make substitutions with an 18-man squad. The quarterfinals will be held on June 4 and June 5, the semifinals on June 8, and the final on June 11.
The organizers deliberately chose the period between the European Champions League final on June 1 and the start of Euro 2024 on June 14 to build excitement for the tournament and are confident that everything can be done in less than four months.