The U.S. National Team will not have the services of forward Jozy Altidore for a second straight match due to injury, the federation announced on Tuesday.
Altidore has been sidelined with a left hamstring injury since the early stages of the USMNT's 2-1 victory over Ghana last Monday. The 24-year-old target striker missed the U.S.' dramatic 2-2 draw with Portugal last weekend as Clint Dempsey started as a lone forward for the Americans. Although Altidore will be unable to take the field for the Americans against Germany, U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann is confident that he can see the field at some point soon should the Americans advance to the knockout stage.
“Jozy is recovering really well. He’s doing a tremendous job there,” Klinsmann said to reporters in Sao Paulo. “Our medical staff is on top of it. This game comes still too early for him. But we're working on him."
KLINSMANN DENYS ANY CLAIMS OF COLLUSION AHEAD OF GERMANY MATCH
Jurgen Klinsmann squashed any claims of collusion between the United States and his home nation of Germany ahead of their decisive Group G match on Thursday.
An accomplished international with Germany, Klinsmann coached Germany during the 2006 FIFA World Cup where his assistant was current German boss "Jogi" Löw which leads to calls that Klinsmann may dail up his old assistant since a draw would see both nations through to the second round.
“There’s no such call,” Klinsmann told reporters. “Jogi is doing his job, we’re good friends and I do my job. My job is to get everything done to make us into the round of 16, and that’s what I’m going to do. There’s no time right now for personal calls. It’s about business now.”
Klinsmann's fierce denial is no surprise due to the stigma that such collusion holds in German soccer culture as the German national team once famously reached an agreement with Austria to earn a 1-0 victory which allowed both teams to advance in the 1982 FIFA World Cup.
"You’re talking about a game that is decades away in its own part of German history and is not part of the United States,” Klinsmann said, showing remarkable restraint as the point was, indeed, belabored. “The United States is known for giving everything they have in every single game. If you look in the past, we make things happen. Otherwise Mexico wouldn’t be here.”
