I"m quite frankly bemused at the fuss that seems to be made here.
I think some of the selections last year by the captains were IMO a bit dubious, but this was only on the basis that they had hardly played in any APAT events that year. To suggest that the captains weren"t picking the best team available and were picking "mates" is quite frankly, laughable.
The captains have to pick a team based on a number of factors and to do this purely by formula would be folly and would of course make the captains spot redundant. Could you imagine Capello dropping Gerrard for Carrick because Carrick had better Opta Stats?
As for the selection of the captains, then this year has been much fairer than last years as people last year were invited to be captains, whereas people this year have been invited to throw their hat in first. This has been on the forum for weeks now and if people haven"t looked at the forum, or spotted it then that is no ones fault other than their own.
England FTW!!