Three More Weeks of Metatarsal Madness

May 26th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

Is it too late to ask for a refund for that oxygen chamber? After a lot of upbeat news the past week about how quickly Wayne Rooney’s broken foot is healing, today we learned that the striker will still miss the start of the World Cup but that he could be back training in three weeks depending on the results of yet another scan on June 14. This is essentially what was said when he broke the thing earlier in the month, back before a million words were written about his injury.

“This is very encouraging news,” England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson said in a statement. “The fact that he is flying out to Germany with us will give everyone a huge lift. We’re still hoping that the second scan will show further improvement and that Wayne can play his part in the World Cup.”

Two questions arise from this. First, can Wayne Rooney still help England if he begins training during the World Cup? I’m not really sure about this. If I were Sven I would probably cut my losses and add a player who is fit from the get go. Of course, if I were Sven I would probably be busy worrying about more important things like which supermodel to date and where I will coach next.

The second question is whether we’ll be able to survive three more weeks of speculation, updates, chatter about country vs. club differences, etc., etc. After withstanding the onslaught of news stories for the past month, we are battle tested, but it won’t be easy. Times were a lot simpler when all we had to worry about was Beckham’s hair.

While Rooney is definitely out for the June 10 match against Paraguay, there is news today that striker Roque Santa Cruz may be ready to go.

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Antonio

As much difference that Rooney makes on the English team, taking injured players to the WC i personally think it is a bad decision. Argentina remembers that from 2002,and they learned from it. I really hope we get to see Rooney play at least a game.
http://ecuador.worldcupblog.org/1/is-this-fight-a-big-deal.html Is This Fight a Big Deal? – FIFA World Cup 2006 – Ecuador World Cup Team Blog

[...] Will whatever happened between Ivan Kaviedes and Edwin Tenorio affect the team next month? Media haven’t said much about it, although it’s been reported here, here and here. Leave it to the English football press to declare: “Bust-up Rocks Ecuador Camp.” Isn’t there a metatarsal x-ray they should be wailing over? [...]