ALAMEDA, California - Fears over Mohamed Touré's availability for Australia's opening World Cup fixture with Türkiye have somewhat eased after teammates reported the striker re-joined training on Thursday, with Socceroo players backing their fitness to give them an edge in the coming tournament.
Touré sent a jolt through observers when he was a notable absentee from the 15 minutes of training that media were allowed to spectate on Wednesday, and it was later confirmed that the 22-year-old hadn't joined the group after observers were ushered away.
Tapped for media duty on Thursday, however, defenders Jacob Italiano and Aziz Behich both said that Touré was part of training.
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"[He looked] good, great to have him back amongst the boys," Behich said. "So, he's fine, running about, full of energy. So it was nice to see that."
"Can confirm that Mo was there, Mo was fit, Mo is healthy, it's all good," added Italiano.
With the side staging a closed training session, however, and the attacker only seen doing light gym work in the vision distributed by Football Australia, independent observation of Touré's status wasn't possible. That will need to wait until Friday evening, when the Socceroos stage their official pre-match hitout in Vancouver, where FIFA regulations dictate that media can observe the first 15 minutes.
There was also no word on what had prevented the Norwich man from training, with reports from Australia suggesting he'd been isolated due to illness. These reports, however, would seemingly clash with footage of Touré mingling freely with teammates as they prepared to take a team photo ahead of Wednesday's session.
The striker has battled soft tissues throughout his career, most recently missing over a month of football, eight games total, after limping off just nine minutes into a Norwich win over Sheffield Wednesday in February and with it expected that he will lead the line in the weeks ahead, any kind of absence would represent a significant blow to Australia.
Based in Tucson, Arizona, Türkiye flew into Vancouver on Thursday evening, with the Socceroos set to follow them when they jet into British Columbia on Friday morning.
Türkiye have been sweating the health of their own starboy in Juventus prodigy Kenan Yıldız, who, having not played since May 17, began to integrate into the main Ay-Yıldızlılar on Wednesday after previously conducting individual training as he managed a calf complaint. Skipper Hakan Çalhanoğlu, who has also been dealing with a troublesome calf, returned to training earlier in the week.
Beyond Touré, the Socceroos have reported a clean bill of health, with most of the squad having completed some portion of a gruelling, near-month-long training camp in Sarasota, Florida, throughout May. And this is something veteran defender Miloš Degenek believes gives his side an edge in the month ahead.
"I think we're going to be the fittest nation here at the World Cup," said Degenek. "I think that helped us a lot, the Florida camp, the boss and the staff planned that really well. I think we're going to be flying in that aspect.
"The boys are roaring to go in terms of that, and I'm not afraid that we're not going to be fit. I'm sure our fitness and our running levels are going to be second to none."
"We've had a lot more time to prepare for this campaign," added Behich. "We were in pretty early in Sarasota, the ones that finished the leagues early, we didn't get that in Qatar - we were in and straight into the tournament. So it's been great.
"We worked hard, no doubt... but it was enjoyable, because we knew what we were getting out of it, and what the rewards would be. If you look at the two games against Mexico and Switzerland, we were running them at the end of the game, so that should give us a hell of a lot of confidence going into these games in the grou
