A nasty knee injury has put Italy and Monaco striker Christian Vieri's hopes of playing in the upcoming World Cup in danger. The club said that tests on the player's leg, hurt just seven minutes into Sunday's 1-1 draw against Paris St. Germain, revealed damage to his left knee's meniscus and ligaments.
Doctors say it is difficult to forecast how long it will take the powerful forward to recover, at this stage. But with Italy coach Marcello Lippi due to announce his 23-man squad for Germany 2006 in a month and a half's time, Vieri is in for a race against time.
The 32-year-old moved from AC Milan to Monaco in January looking to regain the form needed to win himself a place in the Azzurri squad. He had spent most of his time before Christmas on Milan's subs bench. But Vieri has only played eight games for the French top-flight club so far, scoring three goals. Sunday was his first start since injuring his ankle training with the Italian national side ahead of a 4-1 demolition of Germany in a friendly at the start of the month.
Vieri's misfortune will boost in-form Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi's World Cup ambitions. Inzaghi, who has a tally of 21 goals in 48 games for Italy and scored twice in his last appearance against Azerbaijan in October 2003, has faded out of the Azzurri frame in recent seasons because of a string of injuries.
But he has scored eight goals so far in 2006, leading to media calls for Lippi to bring him back into the fold. Pundits expect Lippi to include five strikers in his World Cup squad, or six if AS Roma captain Francesco Totti, widely considered Italy's best footballer, recovers from a nasty knee injury of his own.
However, three of those places are thought to have been booked in advance by Milan youngster Alberto Gilardino, Fiorentina's Luca Toni - Serie A's top-scorer this season - and Juventus captain Alessandro Del Piero. If Vieri does not make it, Inzaghi's main competitors for one of the remaining slots will be Udinese's Vincenzo Iaqunita and Real Madrid's Antonio Cassano.
Neither of those two are in glittering form for their respective sides at the moment. Rumour has it that Lippi may be reluctant to call Inzaghi up because relations were not ideal when they worked together at Juventus between 1997 and 2001.
The striker has dismissed this though.
"I have an excellent relationship with Lippi," Inzaghi said Sunday. "If he does not call me up in May it will be a purely technical decision and not down to any of the other things that have been talked about".
