Mexico’s Javier Hernandez might have spot in lineup against Uruguay
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Reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa -- Mexico had scored only one goal in more than a game and a half in the World Cup when Javier Hernandez came off the bench late in a scoreless tie with France on Thursday.
Less than 20 minutes later, El Tri had a 2-0 lead en route to a crucial win over France that has Mexico all but assured of a spot in the second round. Hernandez had scored the first goal of the match. And that may have assured him a spot in Mexico’s lineup when it ends group play next week against Uruguay.
Carlos Vela, who came out of Thursday’s game late in the first half with an injury, underwent an MRI on his right leg Friday, and his status is uncertain for the Uruguay match, which could open a spot for Hernandez.
“[Hernandez] is the present and the future of this team,” striker Guillermo Franco said of his teammate, who will join England’s Manchester United after the World Cup. “He has extraordinary talent. And an example of that is that one of the biggest teams in the world has noticed him.”
As for the country’s past, Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Rafael Marquez, who have both said this will be their final World Cup, will tie the Mexican record of 11 Cup appearances if they play against Uruguay. Blanco tied another Mexican record when his penalty-kick score against France gave him goals in three World Cups. It also made him, at 37 years 151 days, the third-oldest player in history to score a Cup goal.
Tooting their own horn
They may be loud and annoying. But they’re also everywhere, which is why the maker of the vuvuzela is suddenly having trouble keeping up with demand.
“Before, sales averaged 20,000 a month. But two weeks before the World Cup we started selling 20,000 a day,” Clinton Currie, who runs the Vuvuzela Branding Company, told Bloomberg News. And nearly two-thirds of those plastic horns are being sold internationally.
The Florida Marlins, for example, are giving 15,000 vuvuzela-like horns away to fans at Saturday’s game with the Tampa Bay Rays.
“Our vuvuzelas are 95% sold out, and suppliers are battling to keep up,” Tamra Veley, spokeswoman for Pick n Pay, South Africa’s second-largest retailer, told Bloomberg. Even the word “vuvuzela” is hot, having climbed to No. 5 of Google’s list of Hot Topics in the U.S.
And as the Spanish have found out, if you can’t ban ‘em, you might as well get used to them. With FIFA having repeatedly said it will not keep fans from bringing the noisemakers into stadiums, Spain’s World Cup team has asked fans attending their practices to blow vuvuzelas to help the players get accustomed to the noise.
There were some vuvuzelas among the 400 people at the team’s Friday practice, but the sound was far from intimidating.
Law & Order
A South African justice official said the 56 special courts established for the World Cup have worked efficiently so far, handling 40 cases in the last three weeks, including 16 incidents of theft and other offenses from drug possession to fraud.
The courts were set up to swiftly resolve cases in a country that is known for high crime rates.
Cup venue sickens workers
Ninety FIFA World Cup volunteers were treated for food poisoning after eating breakfast at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, the South African newspaper Sowetan reported on its Web page Friday.
“Some of them were vomiting while others suffered from diarrhea,” local organizing committee spokesman Rich Mkhondo told the paper. All 90 volunteers were taken to a hospital, and an investigation has been launched to determine how the food was contaminated, Mkhondo said.
Times wire services contributed to this report.
