European football makers are said to be planning to organize a new World Cup gathering former champion teams such as Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany…
According to Daily Mail, a special edition World Cup tournament for ages 35 and older will be held in England this summer. Participants will include 8 teams that have won the world tournament including England, Argentina, Brazil, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Uruguay.
The tournament will be organized by Elite Players Group – a group of former football players and sports entrepreneurs. According to the proposal of the Organizing Committee, only players who are 35 years old or older and have played for their national team or have 100 appearances in the top national league are eligible to participate in the tournament.
With these criteria, Lionel Messi is completely qualified to participate in this special tournament. El Pulga is currently 36 years old and is the captain of World Cup champion Argentina.
On the contrary, fans looking forward to the confrontation between Messi and Ronaldo at the national team level after both missed a club-level friendly in Saudi Arabia will not be satisfied. Because CR7 has all the conditions to participate in the special World Cup, except that Portugal has not yet won the world championship.
But even if invited to participate, the decision is still up to the player. As for Messi, he will definitely spend time focusing on the Copa America 2024 campaign with Argentina, so he will not have time to participate in friendlies.
According to Daily Mail, the upcoming champion version of the World Cup will be named after the organizers, EPG Cup. The captains of the participating teams will be the founders of EPG. Accordingly, Steve McManaman will lead the England team while the other captains are Esteban Cambiasso (Argentina), Emerson (Brazil), Christian Karembeu (France), Kevin Kuranyi (Germany), Marco Materazzi (Italy), Michel Salgado (West Spain) and Diego Lugano (Uruguay).
Some of the big names revealed to be participating include five former Golden Ball winners: England’s Michael Owen, Brazilian trio Kaka, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo and Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro.
England’s Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand, David James, Frank Lampard and Robbie Fowler; Cafu and Roberto Carlos of Brazil; Thierry Henry and Marcel Desailly of France; Spain’s David Villa and Carlos Puyol are also expected to feature.
For defending champion Argentina, former striker Hernan Crespo and former defender Pablo Zabaleta are expected to participate. Meanwhile, Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira are on the preliminary list of the German national team.
EPG Cup will include 7 matches held at the same stadium of a top Premier League club. Each match will last just over 70 minutes instead of 90 minutes and teams can make unlimited substitutions with a reserve squad of 18 players.
The quarterfinal series is scheduled to take place on June 4 and June 5. The two semi-finals will take place on June 8 and then the final will take place on June 11, about 4 days before EURO 2024 kicks off.
