Countdown to 2014 World Cup in Brazil: Day 15
The 2014 World Cup begins on June 12, when Brazil plays Croatia in the opening match. Reporters and editors for The Times will count down to the start of the tournament each day with a short capsule of news and interesting tidbits.
It is every coach’s worst nightmare as the start of the World Cup inches closer: injuries.
Wednesday brought news that the Netherlands will be going to Brazil without the services of its most experienced player, midfielder Rafael van der Vaart.
Injuries and injury worries dominated World Cup news Wednesday.
The Netherlands
Rafael van der Vaart and his Dutch teammates have been training in Portugal as they prepare for the World Cup. On Wednesday, the Dutch federation said that the 31-year-old midfielder would not make the trip to Brazil because of an injury to his right calf.
On Facebook and Twitter (in Dutch) van der Vaart said he was “enormously disappointed I won’t be going to the World Cup” and wished the Dutch team “a successful and great” tournament.
Van der Vaart, who received his start in the Ajax youth academy and has played for Hamburg, Real Madrid and Tottenham, has made more than 100 international appearances for the Netherlands. Along with Kevin Strootman, who sustained a knee injury in March, Dutch Coach Louis van Gaal will now have to scramble to solidify the midfield, possibly slotting in Wesley Sneijder as the creative force.
The Netherlands is in Group B in Brazil with the defending champion, Spain; Chile; and Australia.
South Korea
Tunisia traveled to Seoul and came away with a 1-0 victory in a World Cup warm-up match Wednesday. The loss could prove more costly to South Korea.
Defender Hong Jeong-ho left the match on a stretcher after only 13 minutes with an ankle injury sustained when he was tackled from behind. Hong, 24, the team’s central defender, also missed the 2012 London Olympics with a broken leg.
South Korean officials said after the match that they expected Hong, who plays for Augsburg in Germany’s Bundesliga, to recover in time to make the trip to Brazil.
South Korea is scheduled to play Ghana in Miami on June 9. In Brazil, it is in a first-round Group H with Russia, Algeria and Belgium.
Uruguay
By way of an England player, striker Luis Suárez said he should be ready in time for, at least, part of the World Cup.
Suárez had a procedure on a knee last Thursday and is likely to miss Uruguay’s first-round Group D opener against Costa Rica on June 14. But Glen Johnson, a defender for England and a teammate with Liverpool, said Wednesday that Suárez had told him he was primed to return in time to face England in São Paulo on June 19.
Johnson said that Suárez, who scored 31 goals to lead the Premier League last season, had told him he “doesn’t think that it is that bad so he thinks he will be O.K.”
England faces Italy in its World Cup opener in Manaus on June 14.
Notes
Two players on Germany’s World Cup roster — Julian Draxler and Benedikt Höwedes — were passengers in a car driven by the professional touring driver Pascal Wehrlein and the Formula One driver Nico Rosberg when it struck and injured a German tourist and a local resident in St. Martin, Italy, where the German team is preparing for the tournament. They were out for a test drive of two new Mercedes vehicles, one of the team’s sponsors, when the accident occurred. “Julian and Benedikt had the need to discuss it afterwards,” the team manager Oliver Bierhoff told Reuters on Wednesday. “We immediately made our sports psychologist available, who talked with both the drivers and the players.” ... Germany did, however, receive a boost Wednesday when midfielders Bastian Schweinsteiger and Sami Khedira, both of whom had been dealing with injuries, trained with the team for the first time. ... A betting company in England has enlisted the expertise of the noted scientist Stephen Hawking to handicap the national team’s chances in Brazil. He said that England’s best chances of winning are if it avoids high temperatures, adopts a 4-3-3 formation and wears red jerseys. But who does he think will win? “You would be a fool to overlook Brazil,” he said. “Hosts have won over 30 percent of the World Cups.”
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