America offer World Cup carrot to Rossi
Posted in News on Friday January 20th, 2006 11:04am
Daniel Taylor in The Guardian:
As Ferguson compared Rossi’s emergence to that of Paul Scholes it transpired that Bruce Arena, the American national side’s coach, has already contacted Old Trafford to try to secure the 18-year-old’s services before Italy discover what they could be missing.
Although Rossi was brought up in Clifton, New Jersey, his parents are both Italian and, having moved to Parma at the age of 13, his ambition as a schoolboy was to represent Italy. Arena, however, believes the prospect of going to Germany in the summer could tempt the bilingual teenager to change his mind. Hoping to capitalise on Italy’s renowned reluctance to select players from outside Serie A, American officials faxed a letter to Old Trafford in mid-October asking for Rossi’s provisional release if he were called up.
That request was made specifically with the November friendly against Scotland in mind and, though Rossi was not included, his progress at Old Trafford since then, culminating in a beguiling display in Wednesday’s FA Cup replay against Burton Albion, has made a call-up inevitable.
The United States have a series of friendly matches over the next two months as part of their World Cup preparations and Rossi will almost certainly be invited to join Tim Howard, United’s reserve goalkeeper, in the squad. Whether he will accept is a question that Rossi is yet to address publicly, and a subject that he will have to discuss closely with his family.
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