Fortune expected to play some part for SA against England
At South Africa’s final training session, Fortune was nowhere to be seen and an official said they had been unable to contact the player for 72 hours.
It was not known whether or not he would take his place in the line-up tonight as the hosts launch their 2010 World Cup bid.
But bid chairman Danny Jordaan made the breakthrough and told stand-in coach Jomo Sono that Fortune would arrive this morning in time for the game.
Fortune is seen as a key part of the South African cause, and is likely to face several of his Old Trafford team-mates in the match.
Meanwhile, South African captain Lucas Radebe expressed his surprise at the decision of almost half of the England squad not to travel to meet Nelson Mandela on the eve of the friendly in Durban.
The meeting with Mandela in Johannesburg was, for many, a focal point of the brief trip to help publicise South Africa’s bid to host the 2010 World Cup. Indeed, it was described by England captain David Beckham, who made the return flight yesterday along with 11 of his 19 team-mates, as “one of the greatest moments of my career”.
However, while the entire South Africa squad also made the journey, it was optional for the England players. Eight of them stayed behind at the team hotel in Durban, with FA officials keen to stress there was no snub intended to the former South African president.
Radebe’s view was shared by many South Africans, who also could not understand why the England players had flown to Durban but could not then make the return trip to Johannesburg to Mandela’s residence.
The FA was left on the defensive, when it would surely have made more sense to require the squad to make the trip en masse ahead of what is, after all, only a friendly.
Instead, Beckham was joined by Owen, Heskey, David James, Frank Lampard, Trevor Sinclair, Darius Vassell, Matthew Upson, John Terry, Jermaine Jenas, Rio Ferdinand and Ian Walker.
Paul Scholes, Phil Neville, Paul Robinson, Danny Mills, Gareth Barry, Joe Cole, Gareth Southgate and Steven Gerrard were, meanwhile, understood to have stayed behind. Of these, Scholes, Neville, Mills, Southgate and Gerrard are expected to start tonight’s game, the one main selection doubt over Jenas, Lampard or Sinclair on the left side of midfield.
Southgate, one of the most cosmopolitan squad members, nevertheless stressed that no disrespect was meant to Mandela and that the players were simply recovering from a tiring overnight flight from Britain the day before. The FA had insisted this was the only moment during their four-day trip to South Africa that the meeting with Mandela was possible, especially as the elderly statesman could not make the trip to Durban himself.
He was nevertheless keen to use the occasion to promote his country’s World Cup bid, having missed out alongside England in the race for the 2006 tournament, which will be hosted by Germany.
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