Keeper Tim Howard was the Man of the Match in the United States’ World Cup opener, a shocking 1-1 draw with favored England yesterday. Now he’s being treated and will be re-evaluated tomorrow to see if further tests are needed.
It’s unclear if the North Brunswick (NJ) native has broken ribs, and whether he’ll be able to start Friday’s huge Group C tilt vs. Slovenia _ although U.S. coach Bob Bradley appears to expect Howard to go.
“He’ll be evaluated later today and then a decision will be made as to whether he’ll need further tests,” U.S. coach Bob Bradley was quoted as saying today. “Obviously he was sore _ did a great job of taking a tough hit, and staying in it and playing really well. But we’ll assess him later today and figure out then what we need to do from there.”
Howard got hurt in a 29th-minute collision with Emile Heskey, when the England striker’s foot hit him in the chest full-speed. He played the rest of the game and made a half-dozen saves to earn Man of the Match honors.
“I was going to give myself five or ten minutes to figure out where I was, but I was hurting and sore. I’ll be even more sore the next couple days, but maybe it’ll get me out of training,” Howard said yesterday. “It felt like agony. I knew Heskey was going to slide in, and he had every right to that ball, the same as I did.
“You just leave yourself exposed when you’re at full stretch and he came in and caught me just under my chest and my ribs. Initially I was in a lot of pain and I was always going to give myself five or 10 minutes to try to get back I felt a lot of discomfort, but some pain medication at halftime eased it a little bit.”
Howard If Howard can’t play, Marcus Hahnemann is the No. 2 keeper.