Christian Pulisic news: he will be ready in time for the Netherlands game

Chris­t­ian Pulisic will be ready in time for Sat­ur­day’s game against the Nether­lands after suf­fer­ing an injury in Tues­day’s Group B game against Iran, he assured his USA teammates.

Pulisic had a tough run with Iran­ian goal­keep­er Alireza Beiran­ban­do just before half­time before head­ing in Sergino Dest’s cross to make it 1–0 and help­ing the USA qual­i­fy for the Knock­out Round.

“Don’t wor­ry we’ll be ready on Sat­ur­day,” the Chelsea winger said in a post-match social media post, while team-mate West­on McKen­nie said: “I sent him a mes­sage to see how he was doing and he said ‘I’ll be ready on Sat­ur­day. It’s best to be there.’

Pulisic lay in goal­mouth for sev­er­al min­utes after the col­li­sion, but left the field, was treat­ed by his team’s train­er and re-entered to fin­ish the first half.

Bren­den Aaron­s­son replaced Pulisic at half-time, and US Soc­cer announced after the game that he had been tak­en to hos­pi­tal, diag­nosed with a pelvic con­tu­sion, and described as “all day long.”

“Obvi­ous­ly I’m very grate­ful he threw him­self out there,” McKen­nie said after the game. “It was heart­break­ing at the end, but I’m glad I made it and I’m still here.”

After the game, USA coach Greg Ver­hal­ter praised Pulisic for his hard work and tough­ness and had a short video call with the play­ers from the lock­er room.

“I was able to talk to him and he’s fine,” Ver­hal­ter said at a press con­fer­ence. “That’s what he has, when a goal is scored, he’s going to be aggressive.

“He gets in the box and puts defend­ers in a lot of trou­ble with his change of pace. It’s great when one of the best play­ers is the hard­est worker.

“And he is”. I can’t say enough about Christianity. ”

USA cap­tain Tyler Adams said he is pray­ing for his team­mates, adding that he expects goals like this from Pulisic.

“How many times in his career have he scored a goal like that? From behind, it’s spec­tac­u­lar,” Adams said. “The way he timed him­self in the box, the way he got to the ball, he could do any­thing for this team to win.

“He’s obvi­ous­ly an impor­tant play­er for us. I’ll be pray­ing for him and wish­ing him all the best. He’ll do well there. I think he’ll do what­ev­er it takes to be in the next game. .”

Josh Sar­gent was replaced by Haji Wright in the 75th minute after suf­fer­ing a strained back on his right leg while dodg­ing a tack­le. Like Pulisic, he under­went treat­ment on the field, but was able to walk on his own.

The USA used up nine min­utes of sec­ond-half stop­page time to clinch their first World Cup vic­to­ry since 2014 and seal a round-of-16 match against the Nether­lands on Saturday.