{"id":48747,"date":"2026-04-15T17:54:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=48747"},"modified":"2026-04-15T17:56:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T12:26:00","slug":"hugo-ekitike-ruled-out-of-2026-world-cup-after-horrific-achilles-injury-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/football\/fifa-world-cup\/hugo-ekitike-ruled-out-of-2026-world-cup-after-horrific-achilles-injury-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo Ekitike ruled out of 2026 World Cup after horrific achilles injury: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"auto\">Liverpool and France have suffered a major blow after star striker <strong>Hugo Ekitike<\/strong> sustained a serious <strong>Achilles tendon injury<\/strong> during the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">The 23-year-old French forward was stretchered off in tears at Anfield after going down clutching his right Achilles in a non-contact incident around the 27-30th minute. He was replaced by Mohamed Salah as Liverpool exited the competition.<\/p>\n<h3 dir=\"auto\">Confirmed: Season Over and World Cup Dream Shattered<\/h3>\n<p dir=\"auto\">According to French sports daily <strong>L\u2019Equipe<\/strong> and other reports, Ekitike has ruptured his right Achilles tendon. As per the report, sources close to the player indicate he is expected to be sidelined for <strong>8-9 months<\/strong>, with some medical estimates suggesting up to 9-12 months for a full recovery from this type of injury.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">This timeline means:<\/p>\n<ul dir=\"auto\">\n<li><strong>Season over<\/strong> for the 2025-26 campaign with Liverpool.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Out of the 2026 FIFA World Cup<\/strong> in the summer, a devastating setback for both the player and the France national team, where he was expected to feature prominently.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p dir=\"auto\">Ekitike pointed immediately to his Achilles when he went down, and the injury occurred while he was sprinting without any opponent involvement \u2014 a classic mechanism for an Achilles rupture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liverpool and France have suffered a major blow after star striker Hugo Ekitike sustained a serious Achilles tendon injury during\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":48748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4658],"tags":[4057],"class_list":["post-48747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fifa-world-cup","tag-top-stories"],"reading_time":"1 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48747"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48750,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48747\/revisions\/48750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}