James Sands has suffered a major setback during his loan spell at German Bundesliga club St. Pauli.
Sands underwent surgery on Sunday to repair a complex right ankle injury involving a fractured fibula and torn medial collateral ligament, Sands’ parent club NYCFC announced. He will be out indefinitely and there is no timetable for his return this season.
The NYCFC loanee made seven appearances for St. Pauli since joining on loan in January. Sands, 24, logged 452 minutes of playing time for St. Pauli, helping the club to a 2-1-4 record in league play during that span.
Sands’ move to Germany was his second loan spell in Europe after previously spending time with Scottish Premiership giants Rangers. He has logged 194 combined appearances for four clubs during his career, which also included a stop at USL Championship side Louisville City FC.
Sands has earned 13 caps for the U.S. men’s national team to date and remains an option for Mauricio Pochettino’s squad going forward.
St. Pauli sits in 14th place in the German top-flight.
How was he able to do a full 90 this past weekend? He also was not stretched off, did they catnscan him after game after pain and they found out he had fractured ankle and broken leg?
MoB below says it was at the “very , very, very end of the game”
“complex” probably just means both the bone and the ligament. in medicalese it means 2 systems. fracture plus sprain/tear.
with serious leg injuries it is always how do they come back. i would get him back and then worry how well he heals and can play.
the timetable stuff is often a little ambitious or dumb. it confuses when you get medically released to practice with when you really should be playing. how many times does someone have a “setback?” reyna, adams. my experience “4 weeks” (so to speak) is good for a reaggravation, it heals when you get a nice long break and aren’t being rushed back out.
gold cup is mid june so a late june return, which is probably ambitious, would be too late. if they got him back playing scrimmages in june i’d still say leave him off and let him point towards either MLS or if st. pauli wants him back for next season.
i broke a fibula right after a NCAA season and was out of a cast in 3 months, gingerly jogging on a tender ankle for a month or so, playing games somewhat awkwardly end of that spring — like i nearly had a goal but was also like peg legged one side — wasn’t really fully back until summer.
i think a lot of the NT chatter is the fanboys were thinking they might flip his way because he was at st pauli. i think in reality he last played for NT summer 2023 and was unused bench last in january 2024. i’d been advocating him but i wouldn’t rush for US sakes because he’s not been getting called. get healthy, take your time, and push for the fall or spring.
Tom Bogart reporting Sands hopes to be back by June so maybe not as bad a recovery as it sounds.
That’s good news, and sounds a reasonable return for a surgically repaired fracture.
My kid is just now back from very similar injury, was about 4 months from surgery to full contact training. Hopefully for Sands it means the MCL wasn’t a complete tear, and is of less concern.
Sands isn’t the exception. MLS season is long. Players who play a full MLS season, then transfer to a more competitive league ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS get hurt. There’s no offseason to give their body a rest. Dike to A Morris, & now, Sands. The demands of a 6, are extremely demanding. The change of direction; short area quickness takes a physical toll on the body. The torque, a defensive midfielder must put on his/her body is tremendous. The mental part, reading the flow of the overall game is extremely important also. The mental part separates players who are 6s to other midfielders. Def hoping for a full recovery for Sands. *Sands isn’t a 6.* He’s not better than Chris Durkin. Never has he been. Durkin was a CONCACAF best XI midfielder at U17 & U20; hasn’t been done before or since. Sands ain’t close. He’s serviceable in the MLS. His skills as a 6 are limited just like Maloney’s. His skills are better used as CB, where he was developed as U17 & U20 just like Maloney (Dortmund). Busio, Musah, McKennie aren’t 6s nor have they shown to be. Pogba, Enzo Fernandez, Reijnders (AC Milan) aren’t remotely good at playing the 6. Endo, Caicedo, Casimero, Bruno G. (Newcastle) are prime examples of 6s. Rodri is the best 6 in the world. He’s injury shows how important a true defensive midfielder is to a team. Man City is a former shell of itself without a “proper 6”. As good as Kovacic (Croatia), or Rico Lewis is; you can’t replace a true 6 with an 8 or a RB. See them play a 6 & then think they can compete at the highest level internationally. Serviceable will get you beat on the international stage. If Sands is your starting 6 at a WC, then your back line will out of sorts because Sands won’t be able to keep up with the athletes the world has to offer and the backline will be forced to compensate. Think Tim Ream, or Joe Scally! Why is this so difficult for some to understand.
Other than Adams, who do we have who’s better than “serviceable” as a 6? Maybe Cardoso? I agree Sands isn’t a world-beater (or top-tier athlete) at the 6 but he’s an honest, hard-running player who will put in a grueling shift…and he is a better passer (by a lot!) than Maloney, anyhow even if he doesn’t have quite Maloney’s range…Maloney makes even prime Michael Bradley look like a loafer in terms of covering the field. I personally did not regard Sands as a guy you’d take in a 23-man roster since he’s really not one of your top two guys at any position, but with players 24, 25, and 26 (that were allowed in ’22 and will likely be allowed in a longer tournament in ’26) he’s a guy I’d personally stare at because he’s a role guy who offers you a sub who can kill off a game or plug a midfield that’s getting overrun, while also providing cover at two positions. Without Sands, I’m likely looking at Maloney for much the same reason.
I do think future iterations of the USMNT are going to require a lot more than “serviceable and versatile” to be considered for a major tournament…but for the moment, we are not yet France or Argentina and we have to play with what we have, you know?
“we are not yet France or Argentina and we have to play with what we have, you know?”
True but right now, even if he had not been hurt, and even with a 26 man roster, barring injury and an unexpected loss of form, it is unlikely that Sands would have been called up by Pochettino, even for a look see.
The World Cup is a 7 (8?) game tournament (assuming you reach the final). Played out over a month or so it is a pretty intense schedule. You need players who not just in form and fit but also versatile. Injuries and card issues are almost a certainty.
What really screws up the chances of “bubble players” like Maloney or Sands , who might have made a roster in the past, is the proven high level versatility of guys like Weah, Weston, Jedi, CP, Musah, Ream and Richards,
Just follow Milan and Juve a little this season and you will see that our four guys, all of whom are core USMNT guys, are used to “tactical and positional” flexibility.
That doesn’t mean Sand or other long shots won’t make it but the 2026 WC roster is going to be really, really hard to break into.
i think some of the teams are longer term and others aren’t. you will see SOME european teams give breaks to returning NT guys who got no summer break. like the early august games they might be trying things, kids, new ideas, waiting on transfer signings, and giving summer tournament players time off.
but i am sure some teams “do a landon” and just keep them playing. landon also did his sabbatical far earlier than anyone expected for his fitness as an O-30. we thought he’d play forever. and yeah, while i believe in playing hard, i also believe in monitoring your biofeedback and getting rest. if you play too long without a rest something starts to break or you get sick of playing.
I share everyone’s distress and feelings of sympathy for Sands. Unfortunately, an injury like this will probably take close to a year and may be serious enough to really hamper his long term future. I hope I’m wrong.
It was a grotesquely awkward fall as he stretched for a ball and to make it worse at the very very very end of the game.
Dang. Just as he was getting trenched in.
Well, sh!t. You can likely go ahead and cross Sands’ name off the list of potentials for the ’26 World Cup.
I hate it for the guy – he took a bold step, it looked like it was paying off large…and then this. Hopefully we’re talking more like six months instead of a year but he’s going to be out for awhile, but it’s still a bad injury at a time when he needed to be hitting his stride to get into consideration.
I hate it for us, too. I’ve long thought there was potentially a place for Sands on the World Cup squad, especially in the likely 26-man rosters teams are probably bringing to the WC. He’s a very good defensive 6, he can play CB, and he’s particularly strong as a CB in a 3-man backline. That’s a lot of utility…and utility can get guys onto a major tournament roster, particularly when every guy you bring has to fill a clear role.
If there’s justice, Sands recovers quickly and finds his way back onto the roster. Taking a bold risk like the one he took to jump back to Europe after his first so-so stint deserves reward, and I’d love to see him get it.
Have to agree Quozzel. Sands’s value is his versatility. He would threaten to be a starter, but would be valuable as a d-mid or on the back line. If he’s back for the fall season, he has a shot at a WC roster spot.
Broken leg, and MCL, 6 months seems awfully optimistic, that they already did surgery and have no estimate of return doesn’t sound good to me. Q, we need you to find the salary of his orthopedic surgeon and compare to surgeons in other leagues so we can judge their quality.
“Sands underwent surgery on Sunday to repair a complex right ankle injury involving a fractured fibula and torn medial collateral ligament, ”
I’m no doctor but that sounds very serious long term.
For a guy who had yet to prove that he deserved to be “on the bubble” this is serious set back. Versatility matters but there were already some guys who are further up the pecking order with that versatility such as Tessman, Ream, Richards, EPB and possibly Trusty.
Then again, you never know.