Source: Liverpool_Echo
World Cup 2010:Tim Howard tells how he played through the pain after Heskey challenge
TIM HOWARD admitted he didn't know whether he could play on after his painful collision with Emile Heskey during the United States' 1-1 draw with England on Saturday.[LNB]The Everton goalkeeper, who will undergo further tests today to check whether he has broken ribs from the challenge, needed extensive treatment to continue and it wasn't until he reached the safety of the dressing room at half-time that he knew for certain he would reach the final whistle.[LNB]He said: 'Emile caught me right in the ribs. It felt like agony. I knew Heskey was going to slide in, and he had every right to that ball, the same as I did. You just leave yourself exposed when you're at full stretch and he came in and caught me just under my chest and my ribs.[LNB]Initially I was in a lot of pain and I honestly didn't know whether it was broken or not.[LNB] 'I was just trying to breathe and that was tough enough. I was going to give myself five or ten minutes because I knew once the adrenalin kicked back in I was going to be all right until half-time.[LNB]'But it was really sore and it did cross my mind I might have to be substituted.[LNB]'Thankfully I managed to make it through and eventually had a pain-killing injection and some medicine.'[LNB]'I'll be even more sore the next couple days, but maybe it'll get me out of training.'[LNB]Howard believes the opening draw with England was a better result than his nation's famous win over the Three Lions 60 years ago, against a side captained by Billy Wright, which has gone down in history as one of the World Cup's biggest shocks.[LNB]Yet it was very much an isolated occasion, with US soccer subsequently falling back into total obscurity from which, on an international level, the USA were not to emerge for another 40 years.[LNB]This weekend's draw was another matter entirely.
