

How non-stop matches are driving football's biggest stars to burnout and threatening their careers
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When France opens their World Cup campaign on 17 June against Senegal at the Metlife Stadium in New Jersey, they will do so as one of the firm favourites to lift the greatest prize in the game. Winners in 2018 and finalists in 2022, France will arrive on US soil brimming, as usual, with some of the finest players on the global stage right now.
But in what state will these footballers find themselves at the game’s greatest show? Energised, fresh, and raring to go? Most unlikely.France is already battling with injuries and injury scares. Their lanky new forward, Hugo Ekitike, who was one of the few bright sparks in a difficult season for Liverpool, and who was all set to partner the phenomenal Kylian Mbappé, has been ruled out with a tear in his Achilles tendon.
Mbappé, who is, without exaggeration, the biggest and brightest attraction at the Cup, is down with an injury too. A torn hamstring has ruled him out of the last few matches of the season for Real Madrid, and the man who is one of only two players in the history of the World Cup to score in two consecutive finals (2018 and 2022, where he struck a hat trick in a losing cause) is in a race against time to be fit again for the Cup.
The footballing prodigy Lamine Yamal, who at just 18 is the wonderful creative force that drives the vaunted Spanish national side, is in the same boat as Mbappé. Out for the rest of the season for Barcelona with a hamstring injury and in a desperate scramble to be fit for the Cup.
Will we see a World Cup without the two current custodians of beauty of the “beautiful game”? Other stars who may or may not make it include Mo Salah, and 19-year-old Brazil and Chelsea forward Estêvão. Those who are definitely
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