United States striker Ricardo Pepi suffered an ugly injury while playing for PSV Eindhoven.
During PSV’s 5-1 win over Excelsior in the Dutch Eredivisie on Saturday, Pepi broke his forearm and will be sidelined for two months, the club announced.
Pepi, 23, suffered the injury after landing awkwardly while scoring his club’s second goal midway through the first half.
According to ESPN, the club said that Pepi was taken to the hospital and is set to undergo surgery on Sunday.
“It didn’t look good right away, and at such a moment you would prefer to look the other way,” PSV head coach Peter Bosz said, per ESPN.
Pepi’s injury comes just five months before the U.S. Men’s National Team kicks off its World Cup campaign against Paraguay, with the striker’s availability now in question for the team’s last friendlies against Belgium and Portugal at the end of March — right before head coach Mauricio Pochettino will name his roster for the tournament.
During his time with PSV this season, Pepi has scored 11 goals in 22 appearances and has been a steady presence for the club after suffering a knee injury in January 2025 which sidelined him for the second half of last season.
“Last January Ricardo was already out due to his knee injury,” Bosz added. “It won’t last that long now, but unfortunately we lost him again. Pepi was on a good run, had a strong training camp and was all the way back. He became more confident and was in that good flow again.
“All signs were green for a strong second half of the season, so this is incredibly disappointing. First and foremost for him and obviously for us as well.”
For the USMNT, Pepe has scored 13 goals across 34 matches and was on the roster for U.S.’ wins over Paraguay and Uruguay in November.
