Report: Gedion Zelalem will miss up to nine months with knee injury

Gedion Zelalem’s year just got a whole lot worse. After not playing much on his loan with VVV-Venlo, the Arsenal-owned midfielder received a call-up to the United States under-20 men’s national team for their World Cup. This was his chance to turn everything around. His World Cup lasted 30 minutes as he was substituted off for what now appears to be a very serious knee injury.

Football.London reports that Zelalem has ruptured his ACL and will miss anywhere from six to nine months of action. It’s a devastating blow for both him and the U.S. U-20 team in their World Cup run. The 20-year-old started the opening match against Ecuador before sustaining the injury. Tab Ramos will now be down to 20 players on his roster unless a replacement is called in. With the time difference so dramatic, even if he was able to call someone in, there’s no telling if they could adjust in time.

U.S. Soccer have not confirmed the injury yet, but they are said to have an update soon.

Particularly for Zelalem this is extremely unfortunate. It’s been a rough two years since he represented the U.S. at the 2015 U-20 World Cup. His career has at best gone sideways since then and now he’ll be out of action for an extended period of time. Hopefully he comes back from this and finds his way.