PHOENIX - One moment Bill Vinovich was lifting weights to stay in shape for the NFL season, the next he was on a hospital bed overhearing doctors say the next 48 hours would determine if he would live.Eleven days of intensive care followed, then weeks of home rest, months of working himself back into shape.Three years later, he will be the referee at Sundays Super Bowl in Arizona.I never gave up, Vinovich said.He easily could have.It was April 2007, right after tax season when Vinovich, a certified public accountant, was bench-pressing as part of preparations for his fourth season as an NFL referee.He suddenly felt like someone had thrust two knives into his back, a pain that dropped to him to ground and sent him to the hospital.A CAT scan revealed Vinovich had suffered an aortic dissection, a tear inside the interior wall of the descending aorta, the major artery that carries blood out of the heart. The tear causes blood to flow between the layers of the blood vessel wall and can lead to aortic rupture or decreased blood flow to organs.The doctors told him it was inoperable.Officiating a football game was not on his mind.Whether he would live was.It was a scary time, he said.Once Vinovich got through the hanging-by-a-thread 48-hour window, he was told the survival rate for someone with a dissection that severe was about 2 per cent.He was lucky.They also told him he would never be allowed to officiate a game again.He was devastated.I started to cry, he said.But he wasnt going to let it stop him.A third-generation official — his father and grandfather worked football games for more than 30 years — calling games was in his blood and he was going to prove them wrong.Once Vinovich got through the touch-and-go of the initial injury, he started working his way back in shape.The first couple of years, anything strenuous would wear him out. He also had a setback in 2011, when doctors had to repair an aneurysm in the ascending aorta in his heart.He kept pushing forward.I knew my body, I knew I could do it again, Vinovich said.He did.Vinovich started by officiating basketball games, something he had done in the past. He kept himself in shape despite the NFL, worried about the health risks, repeatedly telling him he could not come back.Vinovichs persistence paid off in May 2012, when he received an email from the league saying he had been approved for the 2012 season.I was almost stunned, he said. It brought tears to my eyes.Vinovich had a good enough first season back to work a divisional playoff game between Baltimore and Denver, and was the alternate referee for the Super Bowl.This season, he was the referee in the divisional playoff between Baltimore and New England, a game that included a bizarre formation in which the Patriots lined up a running back as an ineligible receiver.Vinovich managed that game well despite the controversy surrounding it, and his grade from the season was good enough to earn him the Super Bowl nod.There was a point where they werent sure Bill was even going to make it, and he was told that he would never officiate again, said Dean Blandino, the NFLs vice-president of officiating. He never gave up and hes standing here today, which is just a testament to his hard work and the human spirit.___AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL Furkan Korkmaz Jersey . PETERSBURG, Fla. 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The 32-year-old, who will undergo surgery in the next couple days to repair the injury, was added to the teams six-game injury list Tuesday.The Asian Cup will be part of a rapid getting-to-know-you phase for the bulk of teams and their coaches in Australia, adding an extra layer of difficulty — and intrigue — to the continental championship.There are plenty of new players for the quadrennial tournament starting Friday, and more new faces in the coaching ranks — only six of the 16 teams had the same coach at the end of 2014 that they started the year with.Defending champion Japan arrived over the weekend missing one of its stars — and with a new coach.Defender Atsuto Uchida, who has not fully recovered from a tendon injury in his right knee, will remain with his German Bundesliga club Schalke 04 for treatment, coach Javier Aguirre said. Uchida, who has 71 caps, was a member of the team that beat Australia in the 2011 Asian Cup final.Aguirre was hired in August to replace Alberto Zaccheroni after Japans poor World Cup campaign in Brazil last summer.The Japanese begin their title defence against the Palestinian team in Newcastle on Jan. 12, three days after the tournament opener between Australia and Kuwait in Melbourne.South Korea also has a new coach, former Real Madrid midfielder Uli Stielike, who replaced Hong Myung-bo in September after a similarly disappointing World Cup performance. Hell be attempting to bring the continental trophy back to South Korea for the first time since 1960.South Korea arrived in Australia with six European-based players for the tournament, but there was no place for former Arsenal striker Park Chu-young. Park, who left Arsenal early in 2014 and fared poorly at the World Cup, recently joined Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia.The South Korean squad includes Son Heung-min of Bayer Leverkusen, one of four players from the Bundesliga, and midfielder Ki Seung-yeung of Swansea City in the English Premier League.Performances in last months Gulf Cup also resulted in Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all firing their coaches.Bahrains coach had the shortest tenure of them all. Adnan Hamad, one of Asias most experienced coaches, was appointed in August only to be fired three months later after his team failed to advance to the knockout stages of the Gulf Cup.Kuwait started the Gulf Cup in promising fashion but fired Brazilian coach Jorvan Vieira following a loss to Oman. Vieira, who led Iraq to the 2007 Asian CCup title, was replaced by former Tunisia midfielder Nabil Maaloul.ddddddddddddSaudi Arabia has changed coaches more than 20 times since reaching the second round of the 1994 World Cup. At nearly two years, Juan Lopez Caro lasted longer than most, but was let go after losing the final of the Gulf Cup in Riyadh to Qatar.Romanian Cosmin Olaroiu, formerly in charge of United Arab Emirates club Al Ahli, took over as the new Saudi coach.Iraq also fired its coach, Hakeem Shaker, following a last-place finish in its group at the Gulf Cup and replaced him with former national player Radhi Shenaishil.Host Australia is still getting used to its new coach, too. Since Ange Postecoglou was hired in October 2013, the Socceroos were knocked out in the group stage of the World Cup and have won only once in their last 10 matches.Postecoglou included 16 of the 23 players he took to the World Cup in his final 23-man squad for the Asian Cup. Seven of the players took part in the last Asian Cup in 2011, including Tim Cahill, captain Mile Jedinak, Robbie Kruse and Tommy Oar.Its been almost six months in the making since the FIFA World Cup, Postecoglou said. Weve had a series of games where there have been some pretty clear objectives, particularly in terms of broadening the pool and seeing whether we could get some better balance in the squad and more depth.The tournament hosts have slid to No. 100 in the world rankings, and are just 10th among the Asian teams. But New York Bulls striker Cahill said that wasnt such a bad thing.OK, our rankings have dropped, our football has improved, Cahill said of Australias strong opposition in the past year.We could have played Qatar, UAE and Japan in Australia (for) possibly two out of three wins. Our rankings would have stayed up a bit and everyone would have been happy. It would have put a smoke screen over what really we should be learning about.Jedinak, the last Australian player to arrive in camp following his Premier League duties with Crystal Palace, feels the Socceroos have a legitimate chance of winning the Asian Cup.I think 100 per cent weve got the right blend, Jedinak said. We know whats happened in the last year, in terms of the games ... its all been built up toward this point.___Associated Press writer John Duerden contributed to this story. ' ' '