CHICAGO — The World Cup is drawing closer and the question of Chris Richards’ status for the biggest competition in U.S. soccer’s history remains unanswered.
Richards, who’s been dealing with an ankle injury, won’t be ready to play in Saturday’s match against Germany here in Chicago, USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino said.
That match is the last tuneup for the Americans before they open the World Cup on June 12 against Paraguay with the eyes of the nation watching.
“Today he’s training, but evolution is good, but he’s still not ready to compete and to play,” Pochettino said. “I think we have, after the game, the opportunity in the next few days to assess him and see his ankle, and make a decision. At the moment, he’s doing recovery.”
Answering a question in Spanish, Pochettino went on to say that Richards’ timeline had lengthened from what U.S. Soccer believed would be the case when it named the roster.
“When we decided the roster, we thought that Chris could play in the final of the Conference [League, on May 27] because we designed the roster previously,” Pochettino said. “There was a line of information when we were thinking that he could play that final against Rayo Vallecano in the Conference League. He was on the bench, he was on the bench of subs.
“After that, he could maybe be [there] against Senegal. After, today, in the end, the timelines were 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, but also when I was saying based on the information that we used, sometimes there wasn’t clarity.
“In the end, we hope that Chris can be there. But in the end, we’re gonna find ourselves who’s coming without competing [for a month] and after, we have to make a decision if he’s in form or not. And there’s not a lot of time in the World Cup.
“… The information wasn’t the information that we should use to make the best decision.”
Though FIFA’s deadline to submit rosters for the World Cup has already passed, injury replacements are allowed for up to 24 hours before the first match.
In reality, though, there’s no replacing what Richards brings at a position where the USMNT has little depth.
Against Senegal last weekend, without Richards, Pochettino went with a back three of Tim Ream, Mark McKenzie and Alex Freeman from left to right.
