Jozy feeling better and better, but will he play Tuesday?
SAO PAULO – The sight was both unexpected and very welcome. When the media arrived at the U.S. training facility on Friday, Jozy Altidore was jogging around the perimeter of a grass field without the slightest sign of a hobble.
“We are very optimistic,” Jurgen Klinsmann said minutes later about Altidore’s availability against Belgium on Tuesday. “Every day is a big step forward. Eleven days now and he’s looking better every day.”
Ever since Altidore pulled a hamstring in the opener against Ghana, Klinsmann has been reluctant to start another forward next to Clint Dempsey, instead going with five midfielders. It sounded Friday as if Klinsmann might use the same alignment against Belgium, perhaps bringing on Altidore in a reserve role..
“We have to bring the players higher up, get more support for Clint,” Klinsmann said, about both the back line and midfielders. “Something we’ll work on next few days.”
In other injury updates, U.S. Soccer announced that Jermaine Jones, in fact, had suffered a broken nose in his second-half collision Thursday with teammate Alejandro Bedoya. Jones, like Dempsey, will not wear a mask to protect his face for the next match.
LUIS NEEDS HELP
RIO DE JANEIRO— The players’ union and football’s governing body agree on one thing in the wake of the heavy ban imposed on Luis Suarez for his third biting incident: the Uruguay and Liverpool striker needs help.
Suarez returned to Montevideo early Friday, arriving too late to see the hundreds of Uruguay fans who had gathered the previous night to give him a hero’s welcome despite his World Cup banishment.
In Rio de Janeiro, FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke said a third biting incident in Suarez’s career was “unacceptable.”
“I think he should find a way to stop doing it — he should go through a treatment,” Valcke told reporters at Maracana Stadium, where Uruguay plays Colombia in a Round-of-16 match on Saturday.
The players’ union, FIFPro, came to the same conclusion but from a more sympathetic approach.
From Italy, Suarez also received support from his latest victim, Giorgio Chiellini, who described the sanction as excessive.
FRANZ BAN OVER
BERLIN — FIFA lifted Franz Beckenbauer’s ban from all football-related activity for failing to help an investigation of alleged corruption in the 2018 and 2022 World Cup votes.
SHOOT, THAT WAS CLOSE
SAO PAULO — A police sniper asked permission to open fire on an armed man seen approaching Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and other officials as they watched the June 12 opening game of the World Cup in Sao Paulo law enforcement authorities said. Permission was denied and the suspect turned out to be another policeman. More than 60,000 spectators had packed the Itaquerao Stadium to watch the match. — With AP