World Cup 2010 Blog: “Arjen Robben’s Hakbal Injury” plus 3 more

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• Arjen Robben’s Hakbal Injury
• Jabulani Gets Some Love at Last
• Europe’s Big Leagues Fuel World Cup Squads
• Soundoff: Your World Cup Group E Predictions…

Arjen Robben’s Hakbal Injury Posted: 07 Jun 2010 05:59 AM PDT The infamous World Cup curse/string of unrelated injuries struck again this weekend. Netherlands winger Arjen Robben came on as a halftime substitute in his team’s 6-1 World Cup warm up win over Hungary and scored twice, but then limped off towards the end after tearing his left hamstring while attempting a backheel. Robben is not out of the tournament. But even with what’s been diagnosed as only a small hamstring tear, he can’t possibly make any of the Netherlands early games. Video of Robben’s ill fated backheel below… Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk was not a happy chappy. “My first thought was ‘this can’t be true, the end of the final warmup match, everyone is fit and then this.’ ” Also not happy, these sock puppets: I have no idea what they’re saying, but I know that “Robben” = Robben, “Oranje” = the Netherlands national team, and “Hakbal” = backheel. Can any Dutch speakers out there translate? I’m not sure if the beginning of the following clip from Dutch TV show Studio Voetbal is meant to be mean or just illustrative, but it does prove that any talk of a World Cup injury curse ignores the fact that Robben having hamstring trouble is not exactly new. That video also features a phone interview with Robben himself during which he apparently says: “Today I had the scan and it’s just a small tear in my left hamstring. It’s the first time I have a injury on that spot of my leg. The last 24 hours I have had so much support from all the people around me and that had an positive effect on me. “After the injury I went to the locker room for a first diagnosis which was very difficult. But it was clear that it wasn’t good because I had a lot of pain. If I just let it heal than I’m back on the field in four to six weeks, but we don’t have so much time. (Long-time physio) Dick van Toorn is going to help me. Tomorrow morning I’ll meet him and we’re going to work incredibly hard. I’m going to fight till I drop.” Fingers crossed we see Arjen Robben play in the World Cup this year, but fingers double crossed that we don’t see a still injured Arjen Robben limping around in South Africa field when he should clearly be at home resting his hammy. - More Oranje at Netherlands World Cup Blog

Jabulani Gets Some Love at Last Posted: 06 Jun 2010 03:22 PM PDT It have been a tough few weeks for the official World Cup ball. While his predecessors had already gotten the routine thumbs down from goalkeepers, Jabulani appeared to receive universal disapproval, with players and coaches joining the negative chorus. Swimming against the current is Brazilian midfielder Kaka, who defended the ball during a recent press conference of the Brazilian national team. After being handed the ball by a reporter, he made his sponsor adidas even happier by kissing the ball (2m10s into the video). Here’s what he had to say: “I’m not going to criticise the Cup ball. Everything that’s new, new technology, makes a different impression. At first, opinions were critical, but who knows if that won’t change during the World Cup. The World Cup has great intensity, so this whole controversy is created around the ball during the first week but now everyone’s more adapted (to it). (…) Now I see Luis Fabiano kissing the ball and Julio Cesar embracing it.” A ball qualifies as new technology these days apparently. Meanwhile, the man who developed the ball for adidas, Dr Andy Harland from the Loughborough University's Sports Technology Institute, took a stand as well, or rather he simply redirected the blame: “I've seen nothing that's concerned me. This ball has been around since December and been used since then around the world with very few comments. Teams have gone to altitude and you've seen comments come out in those circumstances. We've said all along it would affect the ball but whichever ball you play with at altitude will be affected. There are no secrets about this ball.” So, it’s not the ball, it’s the altitude that sucks.

Europe’s Big Leagues Fuel World Cup Squads Posted: 06 Jun 2010 12:38 PM PDT More than half, or to be precise, 386 out of all 736 players in this year’s World Cup – plus/minus your daily injury victim – ply their trade in one of Europe’s five big leagues; up from 346 in 2006. The Premier League leads the way by some distance, providing 118 players (up from 103 in 2006), followed by the Bundesliga with 84 (75), Serie A with 80 (61), La Liga with 59 (51) and Ligue 1 with 45 (56). The relations stay roughly the same when you only count the foreign players, who play in those leagues. Do those numbers allow for some conclusions in the ever popular my-league-is-better-than-yours game? Probably not. The numbers seem to simply correlate with the amount of foreigners, who play in the respective leagues. The average Premier League squad includes 64,2% foreign players, compared to 48,9% (Bundesliga), 43,3% (Serie A), 42,4% (Ligue 1) and 35,1% (La Liga). To conclude this little numbers game: England, Italy and Germany are the only countries who recruit all 23 players from their domestic leagues only. Although in case of England and Germany, injuries to David Beckham and Michael Ballack contributed to this result. Nigeria, on the other hand, relies solely on players, who play outside their country, closely followed by Ivory Coast and Cameroon with 22 foreign based players and Australia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Uruguay with 21. FC Barcelona will be the club with the most players in World Cup action with 13. A title that would have been Chelsea’s, if it hadn’t been for the club’s strange injury curse. Chelsea are second with 12 players, but could be down to 11, should Didier Drogba be ruled out for the whole tournament.

Soundoff: Your World Cup Group E Predictions… Posted: 06 Jun 2010 06:49 AM PDT Moving through the groups at a pace now, and we find ourselves in Group E. Time to put our necks out and say who we think is going to get through this one. I haven’t been finding it too easy to rank the teams in each group from 1-4, and E is not really an exception. This group finds Holland, Denmark, Japan and Cameroon together. Four teams with a varied, but rich history in International football. And of course, this group might have got that little bit closer with the news that Arjen Robben, possibly Oranje’s best player limped off in a warm up match. He’s having a scan tomorrow, which makes doing predictions today somewhat trickier. But I’m going ahead anyway. Because regardless, I think Holland will win the group. Even if they go into the group stages without Robben, they still have a wealth of absolutely quality attacking options, and Dirk Kuyt. They don’t look as strong at the back (despite a deceptive qualifying run), which I think makes them Dark Horses rather than Tournament favourites, but pre-Robben’s hamstring I was tipping them to go to the last four. Its a bit trickier putting the rest in order. Denmark won their qualifying group, which was, on paper a really tough one. Sweden and Portugal were also in their group, but the Swedes seem to have lost the power they had a few years ago, despite Zlatan’s magic, and Portugal never looked particularly convincing regardless of the fact they have Ronaldo in their side. So them winning that qualifying group is not, for me, as convincing as it seems. Cameroon lit the fuse for African football back in 1990, when Roger Milla and co captured the imagination of the world, but they’ve had a pretty miserable time since, and they didn’t even qualify for the 2006 World Cup. They also only made the Quarter Finals of the 2010 African Cup of Nations. But one African Team is going to get into the knockout stages, I just feel it. I love Japan. I really enjoyed the show they put on with South Korea in 2002, And I love that their fans get into the spirit of Second Teams and continue to love the tournament even after their country has exited. Clearly, they love their football. The fans have had plenty of time to watch their team this year – they’ve played 10 friendlies since January. They have had really mixed results, and though they look organised, they don’t seem to take to pressure that well. So bearing that in mind, I’m going to say Holland Cameroon Japan Denmark I think. I’m not very confident, and I’m not a betting man. But lets hear your predictions, how do you see Group E finishing?

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