Players gripped by injury fear as World Cup draws near
The World Cup is drawing near and the United States is concerned about the health of players.
With injuries a constant worry at the World Cup, players are scared that their bodies might fail on the big screen as they await the start of their journey to Australia in 2014.
The United States has four men injured at the moment, but they are expected to return to action in time for the group stage.
The other injured man, Clint Dempsey, is now likely to miss his second game at this World Cup after breaking his ankle on March 20th against Honduras.
Dempsey, who has been called up to the US squad, also had surgery on his foot in April, but he’s confident that the injury is not too serious and will not prevent him from playing in Rio.
“It was sore for a couple of days at home, but the ankle’s fine,“ said Dempsey, now 27.
“It’s going to take me awhile to get back. Maybe a couple of months,” he added.
“Every player’s got something (different) going with injury.
“You never know the risk of something happening at any given moment of your career.”
Coach Jurgen Klinsmann will also be looking for a big performance from his players this week as they begin their preparation to qualify for the World Cup.
“We need to play, we need to practice, we need to perform,” said Klinsmann.
“As players who have been through this (the World Cup) before, we need to have a good week of play.”
According to Klinsmann’s analysis from the last World Cup, the United States’ best result would be qualifying for the quarterfinals, but he does believe that the team has the talent to make that happen.
“We will try to qualify for the quarterfinals,” explained Klinsmann.
“It’s a tough team to beat in the group stage. In the last World Cup we were in the group where we just didn’t play so well and
