GARY NEVILLE INJURED ON 24 APRIL 2002                         World Cup football home page
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 *** The latest news on the injury is at the bottom of this page ***
 
The England first choice right back, Gary Neville has broken his left foot playing for Manchester United on 24 April 2002 - it happened in a 2-2 draw against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions league semi final match at Old Trafford. He has broken his fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot after an unfortunate tackle with Brazilian Ze Roberto in the 18th minute of the game. This is a similar injury to the one that David Beckham received two weeks earlier.


Gary Neville on the stretcher after the tackle on Ze Roberto

Optimistic predictions show that this type of injury takes around six weeks to heal so Gary Neville may now be doubtful to play for England in the World Cup 2002 - it would appear that he would miss England's first World Cup game against Sweden on 2nd June 2002 which is just over five weeks away (from the date he got the injury). The odds are therefore very much against him going to Japan.


If he is unable to play in the World Cup, his place could be taken by his brother, Phil Neville (Manchester United) or by Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Danny Mills (Leeds Utd), Kieron Dyer (Newcastle) or Owen Hargreaves (Bayern Munich).

This is a cruel blow for Gary Neville, who had to comfort brother Phil Neville after Phil was left out of the final World Cup 1998 squad.

The England manager, Sven Goran Eriksson has said he will name his provisional England squad on 9th May 2002 so Gary Neville will need to show signs that he is recovering quickly by then. It would be a huge loss for England if he did not make the squad - see more recent news since he got the injury below:
 
 
                                                                  
 
 On 28 April, Gary Neville gave an interview to the Times saying that he only had a 5% to 10% chance of going to the World Cup but there is nothing to be gained by giving up and he was clinging on to his slender hopes. He said it would take a miracle recovery but he is having an X-Ray around the time that Eriksson is naming his squad on 9 May to see if there are signs of rapid improvement.

On 2 May, Sven Goran Eriksson said that he thinks personally that David Beckham can play in the World Cup but he was not sure about Gary Neville and would have to wait until the next x-rays - "I'm not so positive about him because it happened too late, that injury, and it's supposed to be a little worse than David's. It will be difficult for Gary Neville to be fit for the World Cup" said Eriksson.

On 3 May, Gary Neville said he would not recover in time for the World Cup 2002 and has therefore notified Eriksson of his unavailability for the England World Cup squad. His club team, Manchester United, said that Gary felt it would have been unfair on the other players and everyone involved with the England set-up to wait for three more weeks before knowing for sure. Gary was given the bad news following a meeting with his club's medical staff.