Ivory Coast ready IVORY Coast Coach Sabri Lamouchi said he was treading a fine line in his World Cup preparations as he caters for players fatigued by their club seasons and those short of playing time. “We have many players at different levels of physical fitness,” said Lamouchi in Dallas where the Ivorians are holding their pre-World Cup training camp. “We have players like Kolo Toure of Liverpool and Turkish-based defender, Souleyman Bamba, who have played little. There are others too who have not had much game time at their clubs, either because of injury or because of a lack of confidence in them from their coaches. We have to give them the opportunity. On the other hand, we have to allow those who have had a long season time to recover. The idea is to get to a level of consistency in our fitness after our first week of training and before, or just after, the match against Bosnia. We want the players as close as possible to a 100 per cent capacity,” Lamouchi said. The Ivorians play the first of two warm-up friendlies in the US against Bosnia and Herzegovina in St Louis on May 30, followed by a clash with El Salvador in Dallas on June 4. They will arrive in Brazil on June 6. At the World Cup, the Ivorians have been drawn in Group C and compete against Colombia, Greece and Japan JAPAN goal-machine, Shinji Okazaki, believes he has unlocked the secret to scoring success just in time for next month's World Cup in Brazil. The Mainz striker's 15 Bundesliga goals set a new benchmark for Japanese players in Europe and Okazaki is keen to continue his rich form in Brazil and erase the disappointment of being benched before the last World Cup in South Africa four years ago. “I'm no target man,” the 28-year-old told Kyodo news agency. “I don't hold up the ball or play with my back to the goal. I score goals by getting behind the defence, by beating the (offside) trap.” Okazaki, who has scored 38 goals in 73 appearances for the Asian champions, believed he just needed to stick to what he was good at. “What I discovered is that if I play to my strengths, I can score goals. There's obviously what we built over the last four years, but the next month is an entirely different story,” he said. Japan will also face Colombia and Greece in Group C. Greece with no rifts GREECE Vice-Captain Kostas Katsouranis stressed there were no rifts in the squad ahead of the World Cup after publicly apologising to teammate, Giannis Maniatis, for a public bust-up while playing for their clubs. The pair, two of Coach Fernando Santos' most senior players among his 23-man squad, almost came to blows in controversial circumstances in a tense Greek Cup semi-final last month. PAOK midfielder Katsouranis, 34, was sent-off in the April 16 match against Maniatis' Olympiakos, and both players had to be separated after the final whistle as scuffles broke out. “We have talked about it a lot and I think it was a mistake from all aspects,” Katsouranis said. “As vice captain of the team and one of the most senior players who has been in the squad since Euro 2004, I think I have a large responsibility. I was in the wrong and I have explained this to Giannis many times.” It is the first time Katsouranis, who has made 109 appearances for his country, has spoken publicly about the incident and he said there were no hard feelings. “We need to stick together. Sometimes you lose control and I think that since making my national team debut in 2003 I've never had such an issue. In football these things can happen but we will continue as we were before,” he said. Greece striker, Fanis Gekas, also sought to allay the notion held by local media that the episode exposed an unhealthy atmosphere in the squad on the eve of their departure for Brazil. “There are no worries. The climate is and will be good. We are like a family and everything depends on our attitude,” he said. “If we play as we can and are well organised, we have all the quality, experience and character to at least qualify from the group stage.” Greece faces Colombia, Ivory Coast and Japan in Group C in Brazil. Their first match against the South Americans is on June 14 in Belo Horizonte. Ivan Strinic out Croatia left-back, Ivan Strinic, will miss the World Cup after failing to recover from a ruptured hamstring, coach Niko Kovac said. “Unfortunately, it's bad news,” Kovac told a news conference, adding Strinic would not travel to the team's Austrian training base in Bad Tatzmannsdorf. “He is looking at another 10 days on the sidelines at least and would be ill-prepared if we had kept him in the squad, so we have no choice but to look at the alternatives.
