Agencies/Belo Horizonte


Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez does not know when forward Luis Suarez, working hard on his fitness after knee cartilage surgery, will be ready to play again, he said on Tuesday.
“He’s responding very well and his spirits couldn’t be better. He’s working full out on his physical fitness,” Tabarez told a news conference after Uruguay’s first practice at their training base near Belo Horizonte.
“As we have no set deadlines, I don’t know if we’ll have him for the first match, for the second, for the third. If it were up to me, Suarez would play tomorrow.”
Uruguay kick off their World Cup Group D campaign against Costa Rica followed by matches against England and Italy.
Suarez told his Twitter followers on the squad’s arrival in Brazil that his left knee is recovering well from his keyhole surgery on May 22 and he is in a good frame of mind.
“I wanted to tell you the knee is going very well, I feel very good, this depends on the day to day (work) but it’s on the right track,” Suarez said in a 32-second video on his Twitter account (@luis16suarez).
“I also wanted to thank you all for your support this week and, well, it goes without saying my mind’s on the World Cup.”  
Maradona praises Luis Suarez as ‘best striker’ at the World Cup

Argentine football legend Diego Maradona praised Uruguay striker Luis Suarez as “the best striker a national team can ever have” at the World Cup.
Suarez is recovering after undergoing arthroscopic surgery to repair a meniscus on May 22 but is expected to be fit to play the tournament.
“He is going to play incredibly well,” Maradona predicted.
“He is going to be fit for the World Cup because he has the guts to do it, and without guts you don’t get anywhere in football,” Maradona told Uruguayan TV’s Channel 12.
The retired player, who led Argentina to World Cup glory in Mexico 1986, is in Brazil as a commentator for Latin American TV channel Telesur.
Suarez trained cautiously Tuesday at Uruguay’s headquarters in Belo Horizonte, and coach Oscar Tabarez said he is “perfectly fit” and is responding well to increasingly strenuous effort.
Maradona put Uruguay’s other star strikers, Edinson Cavani and veteran Diego Forlan, one step behind Suarez.
“I am not underestimating them. I want them in my team, but Suarez is one of my favourites,” he said.