November 17, 2022
The brief from today:
Senegal and the World Cup dealt Mane blow
Crushing news was delivered today to Senegal, and football fans as a whole, after it was announced that Sadio Mane has been ruled out of the World Cup. Senegal’s star forward recently went down with an injury in Bayern Munich’s penultimate match before the World Cup break. Despite the late injury to the ex-Liverpool attacker, Senegal still gambled and selected him. The initial thought was that the 30-year old had a fibula injury, and it would keep him out of the “first games” for his country, but following an MRI earlier today the narrative quickly changed. The scan revealed that Mane had sustained knee tendon damage, and surgery was needed to reattach the fibula to the tendon for him to make a full recovery. It didn’t take long for all the relevant parties—player, country, and club—to come to terms with this as the surgery was immediately performed following the scan results. Unfortunately for Senegal, and their fans in particular, they will now have do without their talisman, while the rest of football will also be deprived of one of the world’s best talents in Qatar.
After gambling and selecting him, Senegal will now have to do without Sadio Mane due to injury
Argentina squad face late changes
Argentina coach, Lionel Scaloni, made some comments yesterday following the friendly victory against the UAE, which intimated that he wasn’t pleased with the quality of his squad and could still make changes. The reason for his statements stemmed from a combination of the form of some players, as well as the fitness of others. With players like Dybala, Romero, and Gonzalez all dealing with either niggling injuries, or having just recovered from them, it seemed Scaloni wanted more insurance despite selecting the players in question. Today, those changes actually arrived after it was reported that Nico Gonzalez was injured in training, and Joaquin Correa sustained a knee problem in the match yesterday. Scaloni moved swiftly to announce that Angel Correa would replace the former, while Thiago Almada would step in for the latter. At this point any further changes the Argentina coach wishes to make have a deadline of 24 hours before their first match against Saudi Arabia on November 22. Those changes will have to be prompted by injuries as well, and would have to be verified by the national team doctor, as well as FIFA’s Chief Medical Officer. Until such a scenario, however, the current 26-man squad is what Scaloni will have work with during the World Cup.
Scaloni indicated he could make changes to his squad yesterday, and today he did just that