The England team have had their first World Cup training session this morning, and it is due to be followed by a press conference with Sven-Goran Eriksson and players.

300 media have descended on The FA's Media Centre in Buhlertal to watch the team train and their eyes and cameras were focused on the brand new pitch, which has been installed to Sven's specific instructions.

Wayne Rooney was at training today and joined in a light-hearted session of handball - in which Rio Ferdinand's skills impressed - with the rest of the players before going through a separate session with fitness coach Ivan Carminati.

On his way to the far side of the stunning looking training pitch, a ball came flying towards Rooney. He dispatched it into the far corner of the net with a left-footed volley which was struck with the familiar Rooney combination of power and accuracy.

There was some excellent action in training and we will bring you highlights of that over the next couple of days.

In the end the oldies overcame the youngies in the match. Both Michael Owen and Peter Crouch (who were on opposing sides) continued their goalscoring runs before the elder statesmen conquered on penalties. Robbo looked sharp from the spot-kicks too, saving from Spurs team-mate, Jermaine Jenas to seal the victory.

Several hundred local children and football clubs were invited to watch the session and were presented with gifts as the squad continue to make friends in their new surroundings.

After having dinner last night, the players inspected the home we all hope to be staying in for the next month before getting their first night's sleep on German soil.

The players have a massive games room to congregate in and their meal room has a view over the mountains which stretches all the way to France.

They will always be close to home in one sense though, they have all the English TV channels beamed into their rooms so most of the evening they got to watch themselves arrive in Germany!

There was another touch of home too: it started raining as soon as the team arrived last night.

The new training pitch has been bedding down for the last 24 days and is exactly the same turf as is in the Frankfurt World Cup venue. So the boys will be training on the same grass that they will be playing on against Paraguay on Saturday.

We'll keep you updated with all the news in and around the England Camp.