World Cup 2018: Colombia's James Rodriguez a doubt for last-16 clash with England
The 2014 Golden Boot winner is suffering from a calf injury
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Your support makes all the difference.Colombia could be without star man James Rodriguez for their knockout tie against England after the 2014 Golden Boot winner suffered a recurrence of his calf injury.
The 26-year-old playmaker was deemed unfit to start the Cafeteros’ first World Cup game against Japan but was pressed into action against Poland in a must-win game for Jose Pekerman’s side. Rodriguez set up the decisive goal for Juan Cuadrado but never looked comfortable and was then substituted after just 30 minutes of Colombia’s win over Senegal on Thursday afternoon.
Looking distraught, the midfielder went straight down the tunnel for treatment on the injury which also caused him to miss a month of the season at Bayern Munich, where he is on loan from Real Madrid.
Colombia manager Jose Pekerman said: “What I can say is I’m extremely concerned, it’s a very tough situation for my team.
“I didn’t want to address this in comments because it seems one of these topics [that] can overshadow everything else.
“In the last Poland match James felt fatigue but it was only fatigue and that was due to him not being present in the previous match.
“He trained normally for us until yesterday, he stayed on afterwards practicing finishing, free-kicks, penalties. He was fully fit in training and in the last training session there was no hint of any injury but right now I don’t know where he stands, to be honest.”
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