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World Cup
Serbia
Montenegro-Netherlands
JadranSport
Rafael van der
Vaart is on his way into the starting line-up of The Netherlands against Serbia
& Montenegro at the World Cup. 23-year old van der Vaart, who is playing
for the German Bundesliga for Hamburger SV, seems to be fully recovered from a
painful ankle injury. Several weeks ago he was operated on, and things were
looking good for the World Cup until he injured his ankle once again, one day
before the friendly against Mexico last week. The former Ajax Amsterdam player
was forced to take some rest and he could only take part in a couple of
practice sessions without a ball for the last 10 days. Two other midfielders,
Phillip Cocu and Wesley Sneijder are not yet ready to participate in the
training sessions. Both players were kicked out of the game against Australia,
which was played last weekend in Holland. Cocu is still suffering a big bruise
on his upper leg and can’t do anything more physical than walk. Sneijder is
dealing with an ankle injury, at the moment he’s looking better then Cocu, as
he has already spent some time with the ball and he had an individual training
this morning. Nevertheless, both players are uncertain to be ready and fit for
the match against Serbia & Montenegro.
Scotsman.com
THE son
of
Petkovic has been withdrawn from the country’s World
Cup finals squad following a row over nepotism. Centre-half Dusan
Petkovic returned home yesterday morning from the
team’s training camp in
that they had made the decision to “put an end to an ordeal”. On arrival at the
Muenster airport in
Savo Milosevic said the team were in good spirits and
hoping to reach the second round from a difficult group that features
and nothing can disrupt the atmosphere we have got,” said Milosevic.
Mexico-Iran
Vital Football
Mexico’s first-choice keeper Oswaldo
Sanchez suffered a personal tragedy yesterday when he was informed at around
midnight that his father had died suddenly of a suspected heat attack just days
before he was due to fly over to Germany to watch his son play. Sanchez caught
the first flight out of
to be re-united with his family and it is not yet
clear whether he will return in time for this weekend’s opener against
‘He wants to come back and play but of course we will wait and see,’ a
spokesman for the Mexican football association said.
NBA
Heat-Mavericks
Associated Press
Pat Riley and
seemed confident they’ve got time to manage the mountain of mistakes and
mangled game plans left from the opener.
For starters, both coaches are determined to get starring
efforts from their star players — because Dirk Nowitzki, Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade all left ample room for improvement after Game
1. O’Neal was even worse than his usual erratic self, going 1-for-9 — actually
1-for-11, if you count the two misses called back by lane violations — and
missing all of his eight tries before the final minute.
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