Mikel and Robben follow more stars being ruled out of the World Cup
The stars from this World Cup are dropping out like flies from a spray. As if there weren’t enough injuries happening in the last moments of this tournament, now there is more bad news to break. The Nigerian star midfielder John Obi Mikel has to withdraw from the FIFA World Cup 2010 due to a badly injured ankle. He isn’t the only one out there for the latest round of condolences. The Netherland forward Arjen Robben has injured his hamstring and is now on the verge of losing the tournament.
Mikel and Robben join the list of the late of injuries with Chelsea’s Michael Essien from Ghana who is out due late recovery from knee injury, also from Chelsea, German Michael Ballack who has both injured ankle and knee, Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba (Chelsea), English David Beckham; torn Achilles’ tendon, English Rio Ferdinand’s injured knee are just a few on the top.
The Japanese too have just had an injury and is from their already falling defensive order. Their defender Yasuyuki Konno has been ruled out of at least the opening game as he aggravated an injury on his right knee during a practice.
Their coach Takeshi Okada has told, “He’s probably looking at two weeks (out). He is walking normally now but it is best not to risk him for the first game”.
With Mikel, Essien and Drogba missing the tournament this summer, it will be up to the home teams to fix themselves a performance that will go down in history. Critics are saying that now that the trio are out of the World Cup the pressure on the home teams would be immense and no man can currently step up for the job.
Mikel who is still young at 23 years old is dumbstruck by his bad luck. It happened to be his comeback practice from a troubling knee injury and it was that that has taken him out again.
In a media conference from the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) spokesman Idah Peterside said, “He had been complaining about a strain in his ankle when we first arrived in South Africa but after training yesterday it really flared up”.
In reference to the cause of the injury he responded, “He is not sure how it happened. It wasn’t a tackle with another player or anything like that”.
From another continent the ex-winger belonging to Chelsea, Robben is in a deep rift between returning to the fest this summer or to see his country from the benches. His pulled his hamstring muscle during a friendly match in which the Dutch obliterated Hungary 6-1. The men in brilliant orange are expected to produce quite a showdown from the underdog groups. They have many star players that are also in form. Experts believe that the with players like Dirk Kuyt, Robin van Persie and Wesley Sneijder, great memorable matches will be expected from them.
Robben who succumbed just about 2 minutes from time limped for procedure and hasn’t travelled with the rest of the team to South Africa. His team mates are proving to be the opportunist, expecting him to be joining them later.
The Dutch Coach Bert van Marwijk sadly reported, “My first thought was this can’t be true, the end of the final warm-up match, everyone is fit and then this.” Indeed the environment around was depressingly gloomy.
Further reporting on the situation he said, “We now have to wait. I can replace Robben until 24 hours before our opening match but as long as there is hope he recovers in time he will stay in the squad”.
Robben is also the winger from Bayern Munich, the top German team from Bundesliga that has dominated this season. It also aced through to the final of the Champions League but went down 2-0 to Inter Milan in the end. Their successful run had a major part of Robben in it.
Netherlands will have their World Cup opener against the Denmark on the 14th of June.
Tags: