Dejan Kulusevski's World Cup Hopes Amid Injury Struggles
Dejan Kulusevski has spent a year staring at the game from the outside. Now he is trying to sprint into a World Cup.
The Sweden winger has not played since May 2025, his season shredded by a stubborn patella injury and a long, punishing spell in the treatment room. A minor follow‑up procedure offered some relief, but not much time. The World Cup in North America looms this summer, and Graham Potter’s Sweden squad is taking shape without him on the pitch, only in the margins.
At Tottenham, Roberto De Zerbi can only work with what he sees.
“I don’t know the situation well,” the Spurs head coach admitted when asked about Kulusevski’s World Cup prospects. “For me, it’s difficult to understand how he can play at the World Cup if he didn’t play any games this season.”
That is the cold logic of a club manager staring at a blank appearances column. Yet even De Zerbi can’t quite shut the door.
“I texted him after [the Villa game]. He told me in the next week, I think, he comes back [to continue his rehab at Hotspur Way]. And I hope he can be available to stay with us in the last game because he is an amazing player.”
Hope, then. Thin, but still there.
Kulusevski is clinging to it with both hands. Sweden missed the 2022 World Cup, and the former Juventus forward has made it clear he does not intend to watch another one from the sofa.
“I haven't played in a year. I know what the chances are,” he told Viaplay earlier. “But if there is one person on the planet who can do this, I would bet on myself.
“And we are not just going there to participate. Sweden will aim to be one of the best. As long as I live, I will do everything I can so that Sweden, when we go out and play, will not be afraid of anyone. Brazil, France, whoever they are. That's why I'm on this planet. To give faith and love to my people.”
It is the kind of rhetoric that jars against medical reports and timelines, yet it explains why Sweden still dare to dream of a late, unlikely return. For Spurs, though, the equation is simpler: they need bodies, and they need them now.
Richarlison scare eases
While Kulusevski remains a long-term absentee, Tottenham had another jolt this week when Richarlison was nowhere to be seen at training on Wednesday. The Brazilian had just delivered one of his most influential performances of the season in the 2-1 win over Aston Villa, scoring in the first half and running himself into the ground before being withdrawn late on.
Given his injury history and the club’s precarious position, alarm bells rang quickly. Another key attacker sidelined, just as Spurs had dragged themselves out of the relegation zone, would have been a brutal twist.
De Zerbi, though, moved fast to calm the mood.
“Yes [he missed training] because he worked very hard [against Villa],” he explained. “I think my mistake was not to substitute him before the end of the game. But Richarlison was playing very well, he was important in the set-pieces and he played a great game. But just fatigue.”
No muscle tear. No scan. Just a manager admitting he pushed his striker too far on a night when the stakes were too high to look at the clock.
That win over Villa did more than add three points. It hauled Tottenham out of the Premier League relegation zone and gave a fraught season a sliver of daylight. The performance had bite, urgency and, in Richarlison’s case, a reminder of why Spurs fought to sign him in the first place.
Managing the run‑in
Inside the club, the tone has shifted. Survival is no longer an abstract calculation; it is within reach. The medical staff, though, now carry as much responsibility as the analysts and assistant coaches.
Every training session is a balancing act. Push too hard and the squad breaks. Ease off and the intensity that dragged them past Villa starts to fade. De Zerbi knows he can ill afford another major absentee with three games left.
Spurs travel to Leeds on Monday night, a fixture heavy with tension at both ends of the table. After that, it is Chelsea and Everton to close the campaign – two clubs with their own problems, but with enough quality to punish any side running on fumes.
Kulusevski might yet reappear at Hotspur Way before the curtain falls, working on the far pitch, chasing a World Cup that seems to be sprinting away from him. Whether he plays even a minute in a Spurs shirt before the season ends is another matter.
For Tottenham, the immediate question is simpler, sharper: can De Zerbi keep Richarlison and the rest of his key players on the pitch long enough to finish this escape job?
