Kylian Mbappe sustained a calf injury during Les Bleus’ draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina and has been withdrawn from the France squad in the final moments of his country’s World Cup qualifier in Strasbourg with the 10-man world champions unable to find a way past the 58th-ranked side.
The 22-year-old striker has returned to Paris Saint-Germain and has since undergone medical examinations. L’Equipe (via Marca) reports that the calf issue injury means he will not be involved in the games coming up next against Ukraine and Finland and has effectively been released from international duty, with no time-frame put on his potential return to action.
Mbappe has endured a rollercoaster summer that began with him being apart of Didier Deschamps’s squad that unexpectedly crashed out of Euro 2020 amid reports of internal rifts within the camp, particularly between the 22-year-old and AC Milan’s Olivier Giroud. This was then followed up with La Liga giants, Real Madrid, persistent pursuit of him in recent summer transfer window, that saw a £172m bid for the Frenchman bewilderingly snubbed by the Parisians, despite there being just one year remaining on his contract. As the situation now stands, the Los Blancos are able to initiate pre-contractual discussions with the French star this coming January in anticipation of his free transfer.
Meanwhile, on another front, PSG fans hoping that their players can safely return from international duty unscathed can now breathe a huge sigh of relief with the news that their new ‘celestial’ star player Messi has not sustained any serious injuries following a horrendous full-blooded tackle from an over-aggressive Venezuelan defender, Luis Martinez, whose studs went aerial to make contact just below the Argentine’s shin. The tackle instantly floored Messi. The perpetrator was sent off with a red card immediately after a VAR review.