FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. – U.S. men’s national team defender Chris Richards trained outside with the rest of the group on Wednesday, building up fitness as he attempts to recover from an ankle injury in time for the World Cup.
Richards walked out to the training field alongside his teammates at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center, the first time he had done so since reporting for the USMNT’s pre-World Cup camp on Friday. He did not train with the team, though, at the start of the session. Instead, he was off to the side doing resistance band work with two members of the team’s staff while the rest of the group worked with the ball.
The defender sustained an ankle injury on May 17 while playing for Crystal Palace and has not played since. He missed Palace’s Premier League finale against Arsenal on May 24 and was an unused substitute for Palace’s win in the UEFA Conference League final on May 27 in Leipzig, Germany.
He then flew from Europe to Atlanta to join the USMNT on Friday but stayed in Georgia while the team traveled to Charlotte, N.C. for the 3-2 win over Senegal on Sunday. USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino said on Saturday that it was too early at the time to determine if Richards’ injury would rule him out of the World Cup.
“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.”
Despite the injury, Richards was part of the World Cup squad that the U.S. submitted on Monday to meet FIFA’s deadline. Participating national teams still have until 24 hours before their opening match of the tournament to replace players in the case of injury.
It is unclear whether or not Richards will be available for Saturday’s friendly against Germany at Chicago’s Soldier Field, which will be the U.S. team’s final warm-up game before the World Cup begins. The USMNT open their World CUp on June 12 against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in the suburbs of Los Angeles.
USMNT World Cup schedule
- June 12: USMNT vs. Paraguay, 9 p.m. ET at SoFi Stadium
- June 19: USMNT vs. Australia, 3 p.m. ET at Lumen Field
- June 26: Turkiye vs. USMNT, 10 p.m. ET at SoFi Stadium
