The U.S. men’s national team missed the services of Weston McKennie and Antonee Robinson against Panama on Sunday and are now awaiting confirmation for the duo’s availability for Wednesday’s clash vs. Costa Rica.
USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter confirmed Tuesday that both players are dealing with respective knocks and will undergo fitness tests on Tuesday night to determine their statuses for Wednesday’s final World Cup Qualifier of this month’s schedule.
“Right now, we don’t have enough information to make that decision,” Berhalter said Tuesday during a press conference with reporters.
McKennie did not travel to Panama this past weekend due to a quadricep injury suffered in a 2-0 win over Jamaica last week. The Juventus midfielder traveled to Ohio instead, along with Robinson and goalkeeper Zack Steffen who were unable to travel to Panama due to England’s COVID-19 protocol.
“He pushed it a little bit yesterday, and the signs are he’s making progress,” Berhalter said about McKennie. “But we’ll have to see today in training.”
Robinson started last week in the win over Jamaica, but also missed Sunday’s 1-0 to Panama. The defender came into camp with a slight knee injury suffered at English Football League Championship side Fulham and admitted in a conference call Tuesday he still needed to get back to full fitness.
“I’ve had the chance to recover and get myself back in shape for the next game,” Robinson said.
Both players will hope to play a part against Los Ticos, looking to help the Americans rebound from a first qualifying loss of the octagonal round. Costa Rica comes into Wednesday’s clash at Lower.com Field off the back of its first win of the new cycle and overall has won its last three head-to-head qualifying matches against the USMNT.
Costa Rica will be without Joel Campbell (hamstring) and Jose Ortiz (positive COVID-19 test) for the match, but did call in veterans Alvaro Saborio and Christian Bolanos to take their places.
Pretty sure they’ll play, might even start. USSF finally catching up with the rest of CONCACAF level of mind games.
Both were training with the team during the open portion of training Tues evening.
suggests the “UK quarantine” skips were also disguised “injury” skips. the UK rule had changed which made me question the excuse. well, they admitted mckennie had a tight muscle but not the others, who were put down to quarantine. appears they didn’t bother with the obstacle course because they were both carrying a knock anyway. so skip the game, avoid the issue, and we’ll see if you’re healthy to go midweek. cause to me sunday was a pretty convincing argument for no more excused absences or selection cuteness.
Robinson was questionable up to the day of the game against Jamaica not sure why this was a surprise to you.
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How about you check into a hotel for 10 days, leaving only to go to work and then return immediately to the hotel when work is over. Once you are in your room your not allowed to leave until work the next day. No visitors, no trips to the ice machine, no trips to the local bodega, all food left at your door that you may only retrieve after giving the deliverer appropriate time to get away. Actually that would be much easier because an average 8 hour work day is longer than a player trains during the week. And by the way if you break one of the rules you are forced into complete quarantine when you are alone in your hotel room for 10 days and aren’t allowed to work.
So you mean basically like what the schools have been making parents do to their kids all year if they or a classmate gets sick? It only gets worse/more complicated if you have multiple kids.
i think you’re under-stating the demands on professional players beyond an hour and a half of drills and scrimmage. what you’re neglecting is soccer players on a daily basis might be expected to have practice, weight training, film work. on a semi-regular basis, travel, perhaps including a road hotel, and games. you’re pretending it’s the old rule — like, quarantine and no dessert. it’s the new rule. you can do all the soccer stuff. broadly considered, soccer stuff could mean they spend hours at the club setup. they then quarantine, yes, but nothing says it has to be literally practice or their room. 2-3 times in 10 days, some amount of travel, perhaps a road hotel, and games. this is not a strict monastery. that’s the whole point to the rules switch.