FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – U.S. men’s national team defender Chris Richards will not be involved in the group’s pre-World Cup friendly against Senegal on Sunday, the team now sweating over an ankle injury that could impact a key player’s availability with the tournament opener just 14 days away.
Richards sustained an ankle injury in Crystal Palace’s draw at Brentford on May 17, ruling him out of the club’s Premier League finale against Arsenal and the UEFA Conference League final on Wednesday against Rayo Vallecano, which Palace won. Richards was on the bench for the final in Leipzig, Germany but did not play and arrived to the USMNT’s pre-World Cup training camp in the Atlanta suburbs on Friday morning. He did not train with the main group on either Friday or Saturday and will not be traveling to Charlotte, N.C., for Sunday’s friendly.
“We decided with Chris, with the medical staff and the performance [team for him] not to be part of today, the group,” head coach Mauricio Pochettino said on Saturday. “We are going to be in North Carolina playing tomorrow against Senegal. I think he needs to keep doing his rehab and I think it’s much better for him to stay here and plan to train and reevaluate next week how he is.”
Pochettino was unable to offer a timeline on Richards’ return to the pitch, even if he was eagerly awaiting one himself.
“I was asking from yesterday, when [he] arrived, to Jesus [Perez, assistant coach] 100 times,” Pochettino said. “‘What do you think? What do you think? Which information [do] we have?’ Wait, wait, wait, wait. The answer was, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait.’ It’s too early. We need to see. The next few days are going to be key to see the possibility, to see if he’s ready or not [for] the World Cup.”
World Cup squads are due to FIFA on Monday, allowing all competing national teams to make changes until then. Teams also have the option of making a change to the roster the day before their first World Cup match if a player is ruled out through injury.
Chris Richards, the USMNT’s make-or-break player
Richards’ absence leaves a gaping hole in the USMNT’s defense on Sunday against a Senegal team that boasts a selection of world-renowned attacking players, most notable among them ex-Liverpool forward Saido Mane and Nicolas Jackson, who spent the last season at Bayern Munich on loan from Chelsea.
Expect the USMNT to roll out another experiment at the back, just as the tinker-prone Pochettino has done time and time again. Pochettino is flexible between a formation with three center backs and one with two, the team boasting a little experience in either set-up when Richards is not on the field. World Cup captain Tim Ream partnered with Mark McKenzie the last time Richards did not start a game for the U.S. team, a 5-2 loss to Belgium in March, while the last time he went with three without Richards came in November’s 5-1 win over Uruguay. Thtat day, McKenzie had Auston Trusty on one side and Alex Freeman — typically an outside back — on the other side.
The results have varied but the larger body of the USMNT’s work makes it clear that this is one team when Richards is on the field and a very different team when he isn’t, arguably making him the most irreplacable team on the pitch. That status is perhaps only rivaled by defensive midfielder Tyler Adams, who could take part on Sunday against Senegal but has battled one hamstring injury after another since the 2022 World Cup. The USMNT’s defensive shape on Sunday may hinge on Adams’ availability but he is expected to play a sizable role at the World Cup, even if he is not necessarily at the peak of his powers.
Pochettino seems to have also come to that conclusion. His usual pre-match objectives are about tactical nuances he wants to test but at this stage of World Cup preparation, he essentially admitted that a single injury could alter the team’s aspirations completely.
“What I want to see Sunday [is] that we are moving 25 players, plus the staff and everything, and be safe and come back here safe on Sunday after the game,” he said. “That, for me — and Jesus over there, laughing, smiling — to go, to compete, to play, come back and continue our preparation. That is really, really important. It’s not about to take risks or to do things that sometimes can put in risk. That is why we are going to be 25 there and maybe we are going to manage the game time for some players that maybe played too much or maybe they need to rest a little bit. Zero risk? Impossible but if it’s possible to arrive to zero, we will do, and the objective is to compete, just compete well and don’t take a risk and of course, being safe here Sunday night to train Monday and keep preparing [for] the first game against Paraguay.”
