United States men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter said he’ll analyze the status of his injured players on a “case-by-case basis” ahead of naming his roster for the World Cup that starts later this month.
The 26-player roster for Qatar will be named on Wednesday, and Berhalter told ESPN that his pool of players has numbered around 32 “for the last couple of months.”
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But his calculations have been complicated by a spate of injuries. Celta Vigo midfielder Luca de la Torre will be out until just before the start of the tournament with a hamstring injury.
The status of Juventus midfielder Weston McKennie is slightly better, but a quad injury is set to sideline him for another 10 days. Arsenal goalkeeper Matt Turner has missed the Gunners’ last three games while Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards hasn’t played since Aug. 27 with a leg injury.
“Ideally, we’d want guys fit, playing 90 minutes every week,” Berhalter said last week. “There is less lead time to get the guys fit, so we’re just gonna have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
“You do have five subs [per game], so there’s some positions that if you sub regularly, you can say, ‘OK, maybe it’s not that big of a deal that the guy’s not 100% fit because you can get ’em out anyway.’ So there’s a number of things you just have to take into consideration.”
Berhalter is aware that a player possibly getting injured with his club team isn’t something he can control. For that reason, his approach is to plan for any eventuality.
“As a coach, you take it all in stride,” he said. “You know that at some times one position is going to be hot and then the others are going to be pulled down.
“And then there will be change where another position will be hot and then one will pull down. It’s not something we get bent out of shape on. We play a team game. We want to win together, and so we’re constantly thinking about every position in the same way.”
