Uruguay vs England: It’s either winning or going home!

The 2014 FIFA World Cup completes its first week tomorrow and we couldn’t have asked for a better game than a decisive Uruguay vs England tie. The two teams are coming out from losses in their opening matches against Costa Rica and Italy and any other result than a win will probably send them back home and out of this World Cup in Brazil.

While Uruguay was inflicted a painful defeat at the hands of a surprising Costa Rica (1-3), England have fallen against a well organized Italian side, in a match that ended with a 2-1 result in favor to Cesare Prandelli‘s men. Even though neither team pulled out any point from their debuts, England does seem to have performed slightly better than the Uruguayans and that can end up delivering them the psychological edge when the two sides face each other this Thursday evening.

Coming into this game, Uruguay will certainly be happy to count with the return of their biggest star, the Liverpool forward Luis Suarez. Despite having warmed up for a few minutes in the sidelines, the 27-year old player didn’t have any playing minutes in the match against Costa Rica and that along with the fact that Uruguay really disappointed in their opening performance, necessarily rose a lot of concerns about this team’s true chances of going far in this World Cup.

According to the press in Uruguay, the good news are that Suarez has been declared fit for the game against England and with him on the pitch, this South-American team is surely expected to improve substantially.

Oscar Tabarez: “Motivation is always something that should be worked first and foremost on a personal level. I’m the leader of this group, but it all depends on these players’ will to achieve success. What I can assure you all is that we have a team who is willing to heal, recover and fight for their country”, promised Uruguay‘s experienced manager.

As for England, Roy Hodgson already promised a very attacking-minded side in order to try to avoid a premature exit of the World Cup during the group stages, something that never happened in the past 56 years. The English manager isn’t expected to bring a lot of changes to his team, even though reports from the UK seem to suggest that Manchester United‘s Wayne Rooney could return to his usual center forward position, while the 19-year old Raheem Sterling should be moved back to one of the wings in the attack.

Roy Hogdson: “We’re going to use all weapons available against Uruguay. This will be like an elimination game, even though we’re still at the group stages. It’s actually quite normal to see this happening once a team loses its opening game in these tournaments”, commented the English National Team manager ahead of their decisive match against Uruguay.

This Thursday evening, you can watch Uruguay vs England live stream for free and online from Ronaldo7.net. The game kicksoff at 4PM in São Paulo (Brazil), at the “Arena de São Paulo” stadium. This game is also being shown to the whole World on TV, so if you’re in England you can watch it on ITV 1, while in the USA it airs on ESPN and on Uruguay in DirecTV.

Uruguay probable lineup to start against England:
Muslera; Fucile, Lugano, Godin, Caceres; Stuani, Arevalo, Gargano, Rodriguez; Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani.

England probable lineup to start against Uruguay:
Joe Hart; Johnson, Cahill, Jagielka, Baines; Steven Gerrard, Henderson, Sterling, Welbeck; Wayne Rooney, Sturridge.

Sources: bbc.com / ronaldo7.net / dailymail.co.uk