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Only days before the soccer World Cup starts in South Africa, one of the stars of the sport, Didier Drogba, has injured his arm and is expected to miss the tournament. Drogba, the captain of Ivory Coast, broke his arm in an exhibition match against Japan. Meanwhile, it’s been confirmed that the captain of the English team, Rio Ferdinand, will definitely miss the World Cup, after hurting his knee in training. The World’s William Troop has more.
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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. We’re getting close soccer fans. The 2010 World Cup kicks of in exactly one week in South Africa. Today some very bad news for a couple of leading teams in the tournament. The World’s soccer man, William Troop, is here to discuss these setbacks. William, what are the headlines?
WILLIAM TROOP: Well very bad news if you’re a fan of England or Ivory Coast. England has ruled out its Captain, Rio Ferdinand, top defender. He has an injury to his knee and he will not play The World Cup, that’s official. And Ivory Coast also got some bad news today because it’s Captain and top striker Didier Drogba, broke his elbow and may be out of the Cup for good.
WERMAN: So how big a deal is this injury, not just to Didier Drogba, which is obviously a big deal for him, but for the African teams playing in the tournament in Africa?
TROOP: It’s huge, it’s huge. Didier Drogba is the top player in Africa right now. He is also considered one of the best players in the whole world, frankly. Many Africans were hoping that he would lead the African contingent to glory. Of all the African teams, there are six of them taking part in The World Cup; Ivory Coast was considered to have one of the best chances to do well at this tournament because of Didier Drogba.
WERMAN: I guess it’s hard to speculate whether an African national team will actually make it to the finals, but I’m just wondering how disheartening it would be, William, for Africa’s first hosting of The World Cup, if no African makes it to say, the quarter finals.
TROOP: Well, hopefully for Africa that won’t happen. There are five other teams as I said Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria. Hopefully one of those does well. But if they were to fail to make it to the quarter finals that would be a big blow to African pride, for sure. And also, it might have some practical effect in that FIFA, the world governing body for soccer, might actually look at results from previous World Cups in determining how many African teams will be admitted to future World Cups. So the African contingent could shrink if they don’t do well.
WERMAN: The World’s William Troop, we’ll hear more from you in the coming weeks, I trust. Thank you very much.
TROOP: Thank you.
WERMAN: By the way, we have a link to a video of Didier Drogba’s injury at the world dot org.
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