Christian Pulisic cleared to play for USMNT on Saturday in round of 16 clash against the Netherlands

CNN

By Matias Grez and Homero De la Fuente, CNN

The US Men’s National Team had good news for American fans on Friday, tweeting out from their official account that star player Christian Pulisic is “cleared to play” in the team’s round of 16 World Cup clash against the Netherlands on Saturday.

Earlier on Friday, USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter told the press that Pulisic was likely to play in the knockout stage match.

Pulisic was involved in a heavy collision with Iran goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand as he scored the US’ winning goal on Tuesday, with the forward being sent to hospital during the game for what was initially described as an abdominal injury.

Pulisic revealed Thursday that he had suffered a “pelvic contusion” and Berhalter said the Chelsea forward is progressing well.

“We’re going to see him on the training field today [Friday], what I think [is] it looks pretty good so we’ll have to see him today on the pitch to get confirmation of that,” Berhalter told reporters.

A CNN crew was at US training on Friday and watched Pulisic and his teammates run through warm-up drills in preparation of the win-or-go-home duel with the Dutch.

The USMNT is looking to progress to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2002, but Berhalter said the team were not looking that far ahead.

“It’s literally one game at a time, one minute at a time,” he told reporters. “In this knockout stage anything makes the difference in the result, and you have to be patient.

“You also have to realize that it could be a 120-minute exercise and you have to plan your lineups and substitutions accordingly.”

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