Chris Richards of palace/">Crystal Palace disembarks as the plane carrying the Crystal Palace team arrives at Leipzig Halle Airport ahead of their UEFA Conference League Final 2026 match against Rayo Vallecano
Bayern Munich alum and U.S. Soccer Player of the Year Chris Richards is missing out on the United States vs. Germany friendly this weekend in Chicago as the Crystal Palace defender continues to deal with an injury that now threatens his World Cup.
As reported in The Guardian, with quotes from USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino:
“He’s still not ready to compete and play,” Pochettino said Friday. “I think we are going to have that opportunity in the next few days to assess him and see his ankle, and then to make a decision.”
Richards suffered an ankle injury in Crystal Palace’s second-to-last match of its Premier League season against Brentford. The exact nature of the injury is not known, except for Palace manager Oliver Glasner saying that he had torn ligaments in his ankle. He missed their league finale against Arsenal and did not play in the Conference League final against Rayo Vallecano. Ahead of the Arsenal match, Glasner said Richards could be available for the European final, an assessment that had cast a rosier projection of Richards’s readiness for the World Cup – boosted by several reports that there was little doubt in Richards’s camp about his availability for this summer’s tournament.
“He’s still not ready to compete and play,” Pochettino said Friday. “I think we are going to have that opportunity in the next few days to assess him and see his ankle, and then to make a decision.”
Richards suffered an ankle injury in Crystal Palace’s second-to-last match of its Premier League season against Brentford. The exact nature of the injury is not known, except for Palace manager Oliver Glasner saying that he had torn ligaments in his ankle. He missed their league finale against Arsenal and did not play in the Conference League final against Rayo Vallecano. Ahead of the Arsenal match, Glasner said Richards could be available for the European final, an assessment that had cast a rosier projection of Richards’s readiness for the World Cup – boosted by several reports that there was little doubt in Richards’s camp about his availability for this summer’s tournament.
Pochettino is also quoted expressing his frustration at the situation — “In the end, the timelines [are] lengthening and [it] angers me a bit. I’m not happy, because we know Chris Richards is an important player. Of course we all know it.” And he provided further context in Spanish, emphasizing again the information disconnect:
Time is clearly running out for Richards and it sounds like the severity of the situation only became apparent after camp. Could Pochettino really be on the verge of dropping one of the most important players in his squad?
Germany, incidentally, know a thing or two about a key player missing both warm-up matches…
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