{"id":116065,"date":"2026-03-28T12:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/usa-defense-weakened-robinson-and-richards-out-against-belgium-and-portugal\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T12:33:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:33:00","slug":"usa-defense-weakened-robinson-and-richards-out-against-belgium-and-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/soccer\/usa-defense-weakened-robinson-and-richards-out-against-belgium-and-portugal\/","title":{"rendered":"USA defense weakened: Robinson and Richards, out against Belgium and Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"Marietta, Ga. &#8211; Miles Robinson will miss the United States friendlies against Belgium and Portugal due to a groin injury. Chris Richards, for his part, is likely to be absent from both matches due to a knee problem, leaving the American central defense with few options in the last two games before coach Mauricio Pochettino announces the list for the World Cup.\n\nTim Ream, Mark McKenzie, and Auston Trusty are the only center-backs available for Saturday&#8217;s match against Belgium.\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Pulisic: I feel the pressure of the World Cup, but I can handle it<\/li><li>Can the USMNT&#8217;s depth in the 2026 World Cup make a difference?<\/li><li>Reyna felt &#8216;lucky&#8217; to receive the USMNT call-up in March<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\nFull-back Joe Scally and defensive midfielder Tanner Tessmann are also options at center-back, according to Pochettino, who has used a formation with three center-backs since September.\n\nRobinson injured his groin during Tuesday&#8217;s training, according to Pochettino.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a3.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2026%2F0327%2Fr1634719_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Chris Richards\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Chris Richards se uni\u00f3 al USMNT esta semana, pero parece que se perder\u00e1 los partidos contra B\u00e9lgica y Portugal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nRichards played until the 75th minute in Crystal Palace&#8217;s Europa Conference League match against AEK Larnaca on March 19. He will definitely not play on Saturday and will probably not be available on Tuesday.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;The club gave permission to come to America and reported some problems in his knee. After evaluating him, he was training part of Tuesday&#8217;s training, but he couldn&#8217;t finish on Wednesday and now he feels something in his knee.<\/p><cite>Mauricio Pochettino<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n&#8220;We hope it&#8217;s nothing important, but it&#8217;s out for tomorrow and I don&#8217;t think it can arrive on Tuesday.&#8221;\n\nPochettino said that dealing now with the changes caused by injuries could benefit the team during the World Cup.\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;We need to see all the options we can have because circumstances can happen,&#8221; he said.<\/p><cite>Mauricio Pochettino<\/cite><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marietta, Ga. &#8211; Miles Robinson will miss the United States friendlies against Belgium and Portugal due to a groin injury. Chris Richards, for his part, is likely to be absent from both matches due to a knee problem, leaving the American central defense with few options in the last two games before coach Mauricio Pochettino [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116066,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2443,355,12464,2075],"class_list":{"0":"post-116065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-chris-richards","9":"tag-injuries","10":"tag-miles-robinson","11":"tag-usmnt"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}