Chelsea FC will have at least eight players participating in the knockout rounds of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, with the positioning of the last four more teams to be determined tomorrow.
Kalidou Koulibaly scored the game winning goal for Senegal, as they beat Ecuador in the final Group A match. Koulibaly and his teammate for both club and country, Edouard Mendy, will meet Group A winners England on Sunday.
And waiting for them on the opposite side is a trio of Blues players: Mason Mount, Raheem Sterling and Conor Gallagher. (Preview for that match here)
Morocco and Hakim Ziyech booked their spot today too. Thiago Silva and Brazil are going through after having beaten Switzerland on Monday.
Then you have Christian Pulisic and the United States, who take on The Netherlands on Saturday.
Pulisic took a blow to the mid-section/groin area on Tuesday, while scoring the game’s only goal. The incident was so painful and injurious that he had to miss the entire second half of the United States’ win over Iran.
Pulisic believes he’ll able to play on Saturday. (Match Preview here and here)
“I’m going to go meet now with the team medical staff and make a decision on [training] today, just kind of see how I’m feeling, taking it day by day,” he said at a Thursday’s news conference.
“Right now I’m doing everything in my power to be able to be out there on the field on Saturday.”
He also said that he “didn’t get hit in the balls. I’m all right,” as a whole lot of commentators in the media, and on social media. seemed to believe that he took a knee to the testicles. Pulisic made it clear that he got hit in the pelvic bone.
“It was very painful. That bone is there for a reason to protect you; I hit it well,” he said. “It was sore, but it’s getting better.”
Shifting gears to Koulibaly, he revealed, in the post-match press conference, who inspired to score the game winner and why. The short list includes their injured star Sadio Mane.
The Liverpool turned Bayern Munich scoring sensation had to miss the entire tournament due to injury, and many people wrote them off once that was learned.
Finally, one Chelsea player that won’t be participating in the knockout round is Kai Havertz.
In a very wild day that saw all four teams in the Group of Death, at one point in, and at one point out, Havertz’s Germany are going home. After winning it all in 2014, they have now stumbled to back to back crash outs in the next two World Cups.
They have some serious rebuilding to do now. Havertz won man of the match today, as he bagged a brace in Germany’s 4-2 win over Costa Rica.
Take a look at the photo below, it clearly shows that he does not want to be there:
Kai Havertz won man of the match today with only playing 23 minutes. pic.twitter.com/AkJieWKYQn
— Conn (@ConnCFC) December 1, 2022
Wow. That’s what happens when you win, you perform, but you just got eliminated. He just couldn’t put on a happy face, not should he be expected to.
Paul M. Banks is the Owner/Manager of The Sports Bank and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly contributed to WGN News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and he co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him and the website on Twitter and Instagram.