England must overcome injuries and 40 years of hurt

LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) England's World Cup hopes will owe as much to the work of the medical team as Sven-Goran Eriksson's tactical genius next month.

A terrible run of injuries, climaxing with Wayne Rooney fracturing a bone in his foot at the end of April, has threatened to undermine all the coach's plans just when England appeared to have their best chance of reaching a major final for the first time in 40 years.

Still, Swedish coach Eriksson is optimistic. Last week he said England would win the World Cup, and no England coach has made such a bold prediction since Alf Ramsey in 1963. He was proved right three years later; Eriksson might not be quite so fortunate.

Rooney appears to have made good progress recovering from the injury and could well play a part in the finals -- but that is by no means certain.

The fact that Eriksson called the untried and untested 17-year-old Arsenal reserve Theo Walcott into the squad emphasises the problems England face.

Walcott is widely tipped to have every facet of the game needed to make him a world-class player within two or three years: pace, invention, dazzling ball control and an astonishing eye for goal.

However, he played only a handful of second division matches for Southampton before his multi-million-pound move to Arsenal in January and has yet to play for his new club apart from a few matches with the reserves.

Eriksson has admitted that it is a risk but one he is willing to take because injuries to Rooney and defender John Terry and lingering doubts about the match fitness of players with huge international experience such as Michael Owen and Ashley Cole could severely wreck England's hopes of doing well.

Decades of disappointment have followed England's only World Cup triumph of 1966 at Wembley by Bobby Moore and his men, with England lacking either the players, the luck or a combination of the two to reach a World Cup or European Championship final.

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