American soccer star Christian Pulisic exited Tuesday night’s U.S. Men’s National Team friendly against Australia with an apparent injury after being fouled from behind in the 26th minute.
The injury occurred after defender Jason Geria fouled Pulisic, forcing the American to receive treatment on the field and eventually come out of the match in Colorado moments later.
Pulisic, 27, immediately walked down the sideline with the medical staff after he came out of the game and was led straight to the United States locker room.
The Pennsylvania native injured his ankle on the play, according to Fox Sports’ Doug McIntyre.
Geria was given a yellow card for the foul, while Diego Luna came into the game for Pulisic.
The United States was down 1-0 at the time of the injury, but the Americans responded and evened the game at one in the 33rd minute on a strike from Haji Wright.
The Americans then took a second-half lead over Australia in the 51st minute after Wright scored his second goal of the night.
There had already been questions surrounding Pulisic’s availability going into the match after it was revealed he had been dealing with some swelling in his ankle last week.
Pulisic did not start Friday’s friendly against Ecuador, but he did check into the game in the 73rd minute and did not appear to have any limitations during his brief appearance in the match.
“Christian participated in the training session, the reaction after 20 minutes of playing [on Friday] was good,” USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino said during a press conference on Monday. “He reacted very well [and the] hope [is] that tomorrow he can be available. We have to wait today [to see] the reaction, too, but much better than when he arrived.
An update on Pulisic was not immediately available during the match on Tuesday.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
