The list of American players who have had their current European seasons end prematurely due to injury has added yet another high-profile name, with Sergiño Dest joining a group that includes several of his teammates from the U.S. men’s national team.
Dest could be forced to miss the remainder of Barcelona’s season after suffering a hamstring injury during Sunday’s 1-0 loss to Rayo Vallecano. Dest was making just his second start since returning from an injury to his left hamstring in March that forced him to miss the USMNT’s final World Cup qualifiers.
The latest setback will mark Dest’s fourth injury stint on the sidelines for Barcelona this season, his second at the Camp Nou since arriving via transfer from Ajax. It has been a roller-coaster campaign for the American fullback, who has dealt with multiple injuries as well as having to fight his way out of the doghouse after struggling to adapt under new manager Xavi before emerging as a regular starter again.
Dest joins a list of Americans who have had their European seasons cut short by injury that includes Gio Reyna, Chris Richards, Daryl Dike and Konrad De La Fuente. Weston McKennie was the first USMNT star to make that list when he suffered a broken foot with Juventus back in February, but more recent reports suggest McKennie could return for the final matches of Juve’s season.
Dest has made 32 appearances in all competitions for Barcelona this season, notching three assists.
It remains to be seen just how serious the injury is, but with more than a month to go before the USMNT begins camp ahead of a busy stretch of four matches in June, Dest could still recover in time to factor into a stretch of matches that will include a friendly against Morocco on June 1 and Concacaf Nations League matches against Grenada and El Salvador.
Seriously just shut them down don’t let any of our injured guys play for their clubs let them heal up and if they’re not 100% healed when they report to camp don’t play them. I’d prefer not to see these guys until that September window let them get healed up work the way back in at the club. What a fuc$ing disaster can you imagine how good this team would be if we had everyone healthy? In my opinion we lived through qualifying because we were always injured. They really need to have that roster at full strength and healthy come the World Cup
Probably unlikely especially since the WC will be during the European season. There are usually 2 or 3 injuries that impact the final roster from what I recall from previous World Cups and I would expect similar or maybe one more for this one due to the season. Probably the four least replaceable players IMO are Pulisic, McKennie, Reyna, and Weah so I am hoping at leaat those four are healthy. All 4 of them have had recent injury battles. Ugh…
Dream on. Our best players have to try to get back for their clubs ASAP. They are all trying to win jobs. If they can do anything about it, none of them can afford to sit out for an extended period.
The World Cup is nice but so is having a good paying regular job.
Most national teams enter the World Cup battling injuries because the tournament comes at seasons end and most of the players are either so worn down they become susceptible to injury or are already injured.
The timing with Qatar is different but the Top 5 play so many games now that I’m not sure it will make much difference.
Fans forget that for a lot of players playing for their national team is so infrequent that suddenly switching over to their national team, even for grizzled vets, takes some adjusting. And in the World Cup, you don’t get a lot of time to adjust.
Very few teams have won the World Cup and it’s usually one of the big boys. It’s reasonable to suspect that their depth and therefore their ability to weather injuries is a huge help.
Of our last 4 World Cup teams, 2014, 2010, 2006 and 2002 only the 2002 team did not have serious injury problems and they performed the best.
For the USMNT , in order to address the depth issue, adding 7-8 players including a dependable scorer, a dominant midfield general type, a solid Kante type, a Van Dijk type center back and a young Buffon type keeper all about 20 years old (Slonina might be nice but he looks like he’s going with Poland).and who are Top 5 level starters would be a good start.
Then you can talk about having a full strength roster with a chance to come into a World Cup healthy.
And if you can’t get those guys? You’ll need a better manager than who they have now to make more out of what they have.