Christian Pulisic was taken to hospital with a pelvic injury sustained while scoring the winner in USA’s tense 1-0 victory over Iran, raising concerns about his availability for Saturday’s last-16 tie against the Netherlands.
The forward underwent scans after being substituted at half-time on Tuesday night, having initially attempted to shrug off his collision with the Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand. He took the knock as he bravely converted Sergiño Dest’s header in the 38th minute but was clearly in discomfort.
Pulisic was examined in hospital in what was described as a precaution. A later statement from the US men’s national team on Twitter said: “Christian Pulisic has been diagnosed with a pelvic contusion and his status is day-to-day.”
“He was feeling some dizziness, it was a blow to his abdomen,” Gregg Berhalter said. “We FaceTimed him from the hospital and he was in good spirits.” Weston McKennie said Pulisic had sent him a text reading: “Best believe I’ll be ready on Saturday.”
A fit Pulisic would be valuable against a Netherlands team that topped Group A. “It’s a great opportunity but we are not going in thinking it’s an honour,” Berhalter said of the task ahead. “We want to go on, we deserve to be in the position we are in, we have to come up with an idea of how to beat a very good Dutch team.”
That has been achieved by a USA side once before, winning a friendly in Amsterdam 4-3 seven years ago, although the Netherlands prevailed in their previous four meetings. History will have little impact this weekend, though, and Berhalter emphasised that all bets are off when the knockouts come around. “From here anything can happen,” he said. “All we need to do is play one game at a time, there’s no need to project how far this team can go.”
Berhalter paid tribute to the way his players dealt with considerable noise around the Iran fixture, drawing comparisons with the 2-1 defeat when the countries met at France ‘98. “I talked about 1998 and the guys not having the appropriate intensity to compete against Iran,” he said. “Today we had it, battling. You saw that from the opening minute.
“You see how resilient this group is, you see the energy. The American spirit is summed up in this group.”