Fabio Grosso
“The naming and subsequent pruning of provisional World Cup squads in recent days has yielded a number of high-profile casualties, among them Ronaldinho, Francesco Totti, Antonio Cassano, Esteban Cambiasso, Javier Zanetti and Karim Benzema, and the tournament will undoubtedly be poorer for their absences. Young stars including Italy’s Mario Balotelli and the extravagantly gifted Brazilian pair of Neymar and Paulo Henrique Ganso have also missed out on the call-ups that many purists had hoped they might receive.” (Football Further)