The 2010 World Cup will help define Harry Kewell's place in football history.

It will help determine whether he is remembered as a gifted but chronic crock, or an immense talent who rose to his greatest heights when the odds looked stacked against him.

Yet how much of a part he is likely to play remains anyone's guess.

Has there ever been a player so cocooned in cotton wool, so shrouded in mystery?

Kewell is no guarantee to start in Australia's opening match against Germany in Durban on Sunday.

If he does, he is no guarantee to finish it.

He is no guarantee for anything.

He insists he is fine, despite having played next to no football all year and missing everyone of Australia's three warm-up matches.

Coach Pim Verbeek insists he is fine, too.

But if he is, why hasn't Verbeek risked him for a single minute in any of the tune-ups against New Zealand, Denmark or the US?

It seems a strange preparation for someone who is supposed to be so fine, and has struggled for so long to overcome a groin injury which has required surgery.

But it seems par for the course in Kewell's topsy-turvy career, which has been plagued by injuries of one sort or another.

Kewell's previous World Cup was typical.

He scored the equaliser against Croatia that propelled the Socceroos into the round of 16, then turned up for the biggest day in Australian football history on crutches.

A septic toe denied him the chance to take on Italy at Kaiserslautern.

Who knows - maybe he could have made the crucial difference when the Italians were down to 10 men?

And now the latest chapter in the Kewell saga is about to unfold.

"I have had it for four or five years now - the speculation is nothing new to me," Kewell said of his latest setback.

"It's injuries - all players go through it. I've just got to get on with it.

"I'm not the only player to struggle through injuries.

"It's important that you have the right people behind you and the right medical staff behind you, which I do, to get you back on the park as soon as possible."

He seems certain to be back on the park in South Africa.

But for how long, or to what effect, nobody knows.

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