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Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Random Injuries Ahead of Opening World Cup Group Games

Lots of players seem to be coming down with injuries ahead of the first match of the 2006 World Cup Final on Friday. Here's a selection of the best to worry fans of most major nations:

Milan Baros (Czech Republic) : Euro 2004's top goalscorer has a foot problem that isn't clearing up quickly. Good news though is that
Rosicky and Galasek are back in training. Smicer, as you probably know, is out of the World Cup altogether.

Baros would be a big miss for the Czechs - he is class, despite the insistence of his managers in the English Premier League to play him as a strong, hold-the-ball-up centre forward. That's Koller's job.

Zambrotta, Gattuso and Nesta (Italy) : Mixed reports coming from the Italy camp about these three players, but losing any of them in any game may cause difficulties for Italy, considering the competitiveness of their group.

Anyway, it looks like
Gattuso might be out of the first two matches and Nesta and Zambrotta are likely to miss the opening game against Ghana .

Michael Ballack (Germany) : A calf injury is keeping him out of training and under normal circumstances he probably wouldn't play in the opener against Costa Rica. These aren't normal circumstances. He'll play, I think.

Cardozo and Roque Santa Cruz (Paraguay) : Santa Cruz is claiming to be fit, but striker partner Jose Cardozo is out of the World Cup completely. Despite this, he will
remain with the squad in Germany. Don't ask me why.

Wayne Rooney (England) : Never heard of him.

Good news, however, for fans of Team USA - Reyna is likely to be fit, as is fat Ron of Brazil and a whole bunch of Dutch players including van Bronckhorst and Cocu.
Digg!

posted by mark_s at 4:15 PM

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