World Cup: Casualties continue to mount
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Another day, another top star knocked out of the World Cup.
Tuesday it was Portugal’s star winger, Nani, ruled out of the tournament with a shoulder injury sustained in training last week. The Manchester United star, who has scored seven times in 36 appearances for Portugal, will be replaced by Ruben Amorim, who has never played for the national team.
Portugal’s doctors said they had hoped an intensive program of treatment would permit 23-year-old Nani to play in South Africa, but on Tuesday the medical team said the injury would not recover sufficiently to allow that to happen.
‘After bruising his left collarbone, and after medical tests, we have concluded that the player is unfit to play at the World Cup,’ the Portuguese Football Federation said in a statement. Nani was scheduled to return to Portugal on Tuesday after missing the team’s 3-0 warm-up win over Mozambique.
Portugal was cheered by other injury news, however. Real Madrid defender Pepe, sidelined since December with a knee injury, has been cleared to play with the national team.
Nani is just the latest in a long list of top players who have been counted out of the World Cup recently. Britain has lost its captain, Rio Ferdinand, to a knee injury while Germany will be without its captain, midfielder Michael Ballack, and Ghana will be without midfielder Michael Essien.
In addition, Nigeria won’t have midfielder John Obi Mikel (ankle), and Ivory Coast will have to do without captain Didier Drogba (broken arm).
And now the Netherlands, which has already lost striker Arjen Robben for at least one game and perhaps the whole World Cup, could be without Khalid Boulahrouz, who limped out of training
Even referees are going down. Tuesday, FIFA announced Chilean official Pozo Quinteros won’t be able to work Germany’s first-round match with Austria because of injury.
-- Kevin Baxter in Johannesburg, South Africa