It’s been a mostly uneventful international break the past week and a half with a number of Tottenham players playing either in African Cup of Nations qualifiers or Nations League matches (totally not a made-up cash grab tournament y’all I promise). And for the most part the players have come out of it unscathed.
For the most part. Football.London is reporting that young Swedish midfielder Lucas Bergvall has returned early to Tottenham Hotspur after picking up what is being described as a “minor injury.” Bergvall didn’t feature at all in Sweden’s first match, a 2-2 draw at Slovakia.
The Swedish football federation put out a statement about Bergvall’s return:
“Lucas Bergvall has suffered a minor injury and will not be available for tonight’s game against Estonia in the Nations League. The midfielder has left the men’s national team gathering in Estonia to focus on his rehabilitation.
“Tonight’s match against Estonia will be the men’s national team’s second during the current session. Last Thursday there was a point in the 2-2 match against Slovakia. Monday evening awaits Estonia in Tallinn. Ahead of the match, it is clear that Tottenham’s midfielder Lucas Bergvall will not be available for the game. He has left the collection to manage his rehabilitation in a club environment.”
Gulp! Nobody’s sure what “minor injury” means and we haven’t gotten any suggestion that it’s anything concerning... but if it’s serious enough that he’s had to return early from international duty that opens the door to the possibility that “minor injury” might be underselling it a bit.
Bergvall hasn’t played in the past couple of Tottenham Hotspur matches but there are a couple of good opportunities coming up for him with matches against struggling West Ham and a Europa League home fixture against AZ in the next week. Hopefully whatever is going on with him really is minor and he can feature in one or both of the upcoming games.
The good news on the injury front is that Son Heung-Min is on the path to recovery; Sonny missed out on international duty this cycle while recovering from his injury and the expectations are he’ll be ready to go for this weekend’s match against West Ham. There are also reports that both Richarlison and Wilson Odobert are ahead of schedule in their injury rehabilitation, but both are considered long term injuries so it seems unlikely that we’ll see them for a while yet.