Ouch Africa!

No World Cup would be complete without its list of injured stars – some hoping to get fit in time to play some part in the tournament, others resigned to watching the games at home.

But it’s not just the coaches and physios in South Africa who are affected by this, the MicroStars WorldStars line-up has also been ravaged by injuries, with big names like Ballack, Ferdinand, Anderson, Nani, Alex, Drogba and Essien all in the wars.

So is there a curse of the MicroStars? Will Messi, Torres or Robinho be next to catch the injury bug?

“We first launched MicroStars in 2001 and WorldStars is the nineteenth series of figures we have released,” said Corinthian Marketing’s Barry Hughes. “This has been the most jinxed collection for injuries and we’ve never known anything like it!

“We now dread the news flashes from South Africa in case another one of our line-up is affected but, at the same time, we know we’ve got a very strong set of international superstars in this series that children across Europe love to collect regardless of crutches, casts and curses.”

With Sunday’s big game looming, we can only cross our fingers that the rest of the England MicroStars contingent – Terry, Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney – stays fit!