{"id":549219,"date":"2026-03-27T21:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549219\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T21:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:50:08","slug":"chris-richards-miles-robinson-injuries-leave-usmnt-shorthanded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/549219\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Richards, Miles Robinson injuries leave USMNT shorthanded"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mar 27, 2026, 02:59 PM ET<\/p>\n

MARIETTA, Ga. — Miles Robinson<\/a> will miss the United States<\/a>‘ friendlies against Belgium<\/a> and Portugal<\/a> because of a groin injury and Chris Richards<\/a> is likely to sit out both games with a knee problem, leaving the American central defense with few options in the last two matches before coach Mauricio Pochettino announces his World Cup roster.<\/p>\n

Tim Ream<\/a>, Mark McKenzie<\/a> and Auston Trusty<\/a> are the only available central defenders for Saturday’s game against Belgium.<\/p>\n

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Outside back Joe Scally<\/a> and defensive midfielder Tanner Tessmann<\/a> also are options in central defense, Pochettino said Friday. Pochettino has used a three-central defender formation since September.<\/p>\n

Robinson injured his groin during training on Tuesday, according to Pochettino.<\/p>\n

Chris Richards joined up with the USMNT this week but looks set to miss games against both Belgium and Portugal.\u00a0John Dorton\/ISI Photos\/USSF\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Richards played until the 75th minute in Crystal Palace<\/a>‘s Europa Conference League match at AEK Larnaca on March 19. He definitely won’t play Saturday and likely won’t be available Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“The club gave permission to come to America and he report[ed] some problems in his knee,” Pochettino said. “After we were assessing him, he was training some part of the training Tuesday but he [could] not finish Wednesday and he now feels something in his knee.<\/p>\n

“We hope that it’s nothing important but for tomorrow [he] is out and I don’t believe that [he] can arrive Tuesday.”<\/p>\n

Pochettino said dealing now with switches caused by injuries could benefit the team during the World Cup.<\/p>\n

“We need to see all the options that we can have because the circumstances can happen,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mar 27, 2026, 02:59 PM ET MARIETTA, Ga. — Miles Robinson will miss the United States‘ friendlies against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-549219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}