World Cup countdown: Anelka misses the French cut

THE Arsenal striker, Nicolas Anelka, will not be representing France in the World Cup squad in his homeland this summer.

The 19-year-old had been included in a preliminary squad of 28 players, but he missed the cut when Aime Jacquet, the French coach, announced his final list of 22 yesterday. However, Anelka's Highbury team-mates, Patrick Vieira and Emmanuel Petit, are both included.

Two other Premiership player is in the squad: the Chelsea defender Franck Leboeuf and the West Ham goalkeeper Bernard Lama. Up front, Jacquet has chosen two Monaco strikers, Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet, plus Christophe Dugarry of Marseilles and Auxerre's Stephane Guivarc'h.

Both Dugarry and Henry have been in sub-standard form in recent weeks, but Jacquet said: "My only concern was to pick the best possible team for France." He added that his mind had been made up for three months, and that he had wanted to delay naming his selection but had decided to go ahead as the six discarded players wanted to be released straight away.

The other five players left out of the final squad were the Sampdoria defender Pierre Laigle, the Metz goalkeeper Lionel Letizi, the Monaco defender Martin Djetou, Auxerre's midfielder Sabri Lamouchi and Milan's striker Ibrahim Ba.

"We went to say goodbye to them. It must be very hard to live with - but we were all warned," Youri Djorkaeff, the Internazionale midfielder who did make the cut, said.

Italy's coach, Cesare Maldini, decided yesterday to summon the injured Juventus striker Alessandro Del Piero to his squad's training camp next week, despite lingering doubts about his fitness for France.

Maldini said that Del Piero, who pulled a groin muscle in the European Cup final in Amsterdam last week, would join the rest of the party in Tuscany from Wednesday. As a precaution, though, he said he was also calling up the Parma striker Enrico Chiesa, not previously been named in the squad.

"I'll do the impossible to be there," Del Piero said on Friday. He has until 2 June, the deadline for finalising squads, to prove his fitness.

In contrast to France and Italy, whose coaches have had years to prepare for the tournament, Iran's new coach started work last week.

Jahal Talebi took over from the Croatian Tomislav Ivic, who became the second coach to be dismissed by the Iranians since they qualified for France.

"Talebi isn't a famous name like Ivic, but his work will be better," Abbas Torabian, the Iranian football federation's vice-chairman, said yesterday. "Talebi knows the history, the technical capabilities of the players and he can put them in the right frame of mind to face any situation. Ivic didn't understand the psychology and the culture of our players."