Malo Gusto withdrawn from France U21 squad due to ‘minor ligament injury’

The international break has only just begun, but we already have some bad news regarding injuries. Malo Gusto has been withdrawn from the France U21 squad, with what L’Equipe are calling a “small injury to the medial lateral ligament in his right knee”.

Minor or not, there sure are some scary words in there, auto-translated as they may be, namely “ligament” and “knee” and “medial lateral” (i.e. MCL).

The report says that the injury was discovered as the result of an MRI, which was presumably conducted since Gusto had been playing with his right knee and right thigh taped up for the past few weeks. He seemed to be moving just fine, so hopefully this is indeed just a minor problem that can be managed with just a few weeks of rest. MCL injuries can range quite a bit in severity, and at worst, they need surgical intervention and many months of rehab (as in the case of Christopher Nkunku this season).

If Gusto’s forced to miss time, fortunately we do have Reece James back to (almost) full match fitness and both Marc Cucurella and Axel Disasi have deputized capably enough at the position as well.