La Volpe names his squad, while Ivankovic …

Mexico coach Ricardo La Volpe has named his 18-man squad for the friendly against Paraguay which is to be played in Chicago on 29 March.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Branko Ivankovic is counting flies on the wall, because he had no friendly for which he can name a squad!

Apparently, the Iranian federation is worried that a bad loss in a friendly may cause too much trouble for them, so they just do without them! This is concern is not of course without merit. Many still remember the firing of the great Croatian coach Tomislav Ivic weeks before the 1998 World Cup and right after an embarrassing loss to AS Roma.

I guess they figure it is better to get embarrassed at the World Cup, and then fire the guy and be done with it.