The "Golden Oldies"

The past decade or so has seen the growth and development of a whole generation of fabulous players, many of which will unfortunately and almost certainly be playing in this, their last ever world cup. In 2006, Zinedine Zidane blessed the world of football with some sublime performances. Worthy winner of the tournament’s Golden Ball - the best player award - the hardest thing for me was accepting that that was to be the last time we'd be seeing him kicking a football... or head butting Italian defenders for that matter.

This year, although not so dramatic - as many players will continue to play in their respective leagues - we'll be seeing a whole bunch of players, probably playing in their last World Cup and sadly, one of the teams most affected by this will be England. Captain Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard are the most notable ones, all of which are kicking 30+ and John Terry (29), Ashley Cole (29), Peter Crouch (29) and Joe Cole (28) are not far behind either.

In fact, if Capello's recent squad numbers’ allocation is anything to go by then the average age of England's starting 11 will be 28.9. And if you include the full 23-man squad, the full average is 28.7, making it the oldest ever English team to be taken to a World Cup and in fact, the oldest there this year altogether. Next in line are Brazil (28.6), Australia (28.4) and the Italians (28.2).

What does this say about England and its team? Is it getting desperate now? Are these really the best players we've got there? Should we look to the future and see this as a positive for the next generation of players? Maybe. But what of their chances during this world cup?

I reckon it could go either way. Either they suffer terribly with the South African conditions, getting torn apart by young wingers and fitter forwards or... they give it one last push for glory. Surely knowing that this is indeed their last possible chance of glory should be enough for them to push on and fill that blank space on their "footballing resume", cus lets face it, this generation has utterly failed to deliver on the international stage.

On the other hand, when you look at the likes of Messi, Agüero, Higuain and Di Maria in Argentina, all at the tender age of 22, you've gotta worry about the state of English football. Even Germany are gonna be taking their youngest ever team to this year's World Cup.

Still, England will not be the only ones to suffer the loss of some great players this year. The 2010 World Cup will almost certainly be the last for Italian 'giants' Canavarro, Zambrotta, Camoranesi, Andrea Pirlo and the king of them all, Gennaro Gattuso (all of which look super old on Wikipedia by the way! God knows how they're still playing!)

We'll also be seeing off the likes of Didier Drogba (32) - although with him, you just never know. It's the end for Michael Ballack (before it even began!). Van Bommel (33) will be going as will Dirk Kuyt (29), maybe.

From Spain, Xavi (30) and Puyol (32) will probably bow out and finally, this will also probably be the last one for the French players who so famously brought so much pride and glory to their country in the last decade or so. Henry and Gallas (32), Anelka (31), Govou and Abidal (30), Malouda and Evra (29) would all seriously struggle to make the next one in Brazil in 2014.

So, will one of these Golden Oldies go out with an almighty bang and carve their names in footballing folklore, or will the young (especially Argentine) guns rip their hearts out… and with them, their dreams too?