Aston Villa midfielder Amadou Onana suffered what appeared to be a serious knee injury during Belgium’s win over the USA at the World Cup on Monday night.
The 24-year-old sustained the issue in the 19th minute of the game, as he appeared to overstretch for a contested ball and landed awkwardly which in turn twisted his knee.
His shocked look as he called over to the bench for treatment immediately suggested that he knew something was wrong, and although he attempted to play on, he was replaced just minutes later.
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Onana returned to the sidelines for the remainder of the game and was seen wearing a knee brace as well as needing crutches to walk, while teammate Romelu Lukaku held up his jersey as the Belgians celebrated their fourth goal in a 4-1 win to advance to the quarter-finals.
In turn, it doesn’t look particularly promising as that would all indicate that Onana has potentially suffered a serious injury, and while further tests will no doubt reveal more about the severity of the issue, Belgium boss Rudi Garcia didn’t sound too optimistic either.
As per Footmercato, Garcia said: “That’s the major concern. I think his substitution gave us a boost after halftime. We wanted to qualify for him. We have to wait for the medical results, but I fear it’s a serious injury. It’s bad news for him first and foremost, but also for us. I hope I’m wrong, but I think his tournament is over.”
Time will tell how bad the injury is but Onana will likely remain in the USA to stay with his compatriots and receive further treatment before returning home.
Villa will undoubtedly hope to get a look at him sooner rather than later to see if it will impact his pre-season preparations, albeit he would have been given an extended break given his participation at the World Cup anyway.
It’s a bitterly disappointing setback though as the Belgian midfielder has struggled with injuries since joining us, as he’s been limited to 34 and 38 appearances across all competitions in the last two seasons respectively, and so the last thing that either he or the club wanted was to be at risk of missing the start of the new campaign, or at least having to rehab a fresh injury problem over the summer, and of course in the more immediate future now possibly miss the rest of the World Cup.
