Grella named captain for Ghana clash

3 min read 15 November 2006

Qantas Socceroo midfield enforcer Vince Grella has become the 51st captain of the senior national team for Wednesday mornings international against African side Ghana at Loftus Road in London.

Grella, who captain-s his Italian Serie A club side Parma, will lead the team out in the absence of Mark Viduka, Lucas Neill and Craig Moore, who have all led their country in the past couple of years.

His performances in the heart of the midfield during the World Cup finals in Germany and in the recent internationals back here in Australia, made him an ideal choice and he was obviously over the moon with the decision.

“It is a great honour and I am very happy to lead the team,” Grella said from the team-s hotel in London. “After a few years of being in and out of the team, it-s good to be considered one of the more important players.

“Maybe after the last few games and the World Cup, the coaching staff has seen something in me that they like, so I am happy.”

Despite getting the captaincy, Grella will not be looking to change how he approaches the game in any way.

“Game wise, I will do what I have always done and I am not going to change much. I think it-s always important in the friendly games to give all you have got, even when players can be a little bit tired.”

Grella also believes the squad is still very strong despite the absence of key players and doesn-t believe their absence has taken any of the teams confidence in getting a positive result from the fixture.

“Its still a very strong squad,” he said. “There is a lot of new faces and its hard to judge after just one very light training session and some of the new boys don-t look too bad.

“I don-t think it-s taken any confidence out of the team. We still have got good experienced players and you have a few young boys that are coming through and want to show the coaching staff what they can do, so it-s the perfect mix to have a good team.”

The match can be seen live and exclusive on SBS from 6.45am, while there will also be a live update right here on the FFA website.