Road to Recovery

Vicente Del Bosque has been accused of being a lot of things, most notably boring and lacking charisma.

But one thing he's not is stupid.

The Spanish national team coach revealed that he plans to rest Fernando Torres when La Roja take on South Korea in a World Cup tune-up match Thursday in Austria.

Torres is lightning quick, a deadly finisher and a player of such high class with the ball at his feet that he routinely makes the spectacular look ordinary. He is, quite simply, one of the best strikers in the world.

But he is also coming off an injury-plagued season for Liverpool, in which he missed a handful of games in the final weeks of the English Premiership season due to a knee problem.

Spain has always contended that Torres will be fully healthy in time for its World Cup opener against Switzerland on June 16, but there's been growing concern that El Nino's recovery isn't going as smoothly as hoped.

The easy thing to do would be to throw Torres in for 45 minutes against the Koreans to see evaluate how the knee holds up in a competitive situation. It would also give him a bit of playing time and allow him to get his timing back after sitting on the sidelines for an extended period of time.

But Del Bosque is doing the right thing by not rushing Torres back into action. Why risk one of his best players in a meaningless friendly?

France learned that lesson the hard way when Zinedine Zidane picked up a thigh injury in a friendly against South Korea five days before the 2002 World Cup.

Zizou ended up missing the first two games of the tournament and Les Bleus crashed out of the tournament without winning a game or even scoring a goal.

No doubt Del Bosque remembers the plight of the French eight years ago, and doesn't want the same thing to happen to his Spanish side.

"He feels good and we have no doubt on [June] 16th he'll be in perfect playing conditions," Del Bosque told the Associated Press. "But the most important thing is that he's well on that day and he won't be if he plays [on Thursday].

"We won't take any risks. We haven't done it with any player and in this case we won't either."