LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Alexander Isak's underwhelming start to his Liverpool career hit another bump when he sustained a groin injury in the Champions League win at Eintracht Frankfurt.
The Sweden striker, signed from Newcastle for a British-record fee of 125 million pounds ($170 million) at the end of the summer transfer window, was withdrawn at halftime of the 5-1 victory on Wednesday.
It was the second injury on the night for Liverpool, with right back Jeremie Frimpong having already come off midway through the first half because of a hamstring problem.
Isak has been building up his match sharpness in the last few weeks, after training away from the main Newcastle squad in preseason while agitating for the move to Liverpool. He has scored just one goal in eight games in all competitions for his new club.
Liverpool manager Arne Slot said last week that only now could Isak be fairly judged, given the player's turbulent preseason.
“Let’s hope it’s not that bad, but he had to go off because he felt his groin,” Slot said. “Many people wanted me to play him more and we had to find the balance and unfortunately today that balance didn’t work out for us perfectly. But let’s hope for the best."
Slot spoke about the difficulty in managing Isak's playing time over the past month, and said the fact that the striker played twice for Sweden in the recent international window strengthened the belief he was ready to string together starts.
“When he came to the club, he had hardly trained," the Dutchman said. "So you bring him step by step forward, and then you feel there must be a moment where he can play twice a week, and the first time we try — he did it with Sweden as well — he has to go off.
“Normally you try to prepare players for once-a-week football, but if you are Liverpool you play every three days or normally three times in eight days but we’ve been unfortunate this season, we have to play three times in seven days.
"We’ve tried to prepare him for that, we were really careful, and he was perfectly fit when he came back from the national team before the (Manchester) United game on Sunday. We thought he was well prepared for that but the margins at the top are small."
Frimpong has also endured a stop-start campaign in his first season at Liverpool after joining from Bayer Leverkusen.
Slot said the Netherlands international would be out for a “few weeks."
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Liverpool's manager Arne Slot, right, shales hands with Jeremie Frimpong during a substitution at the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Liverpool in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Liverpool's Alexander Isak, right, makes an attempt to score past Manchester United's goalkeeper Senne Lammens during the English Premier League soccer match between Liverpool and Manchester United in Liverpool, England, Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado comes to the White House on Thursday to discuss her country's future with President Donald Trump even after he publicly dismissed her credibility to take over after an audacious U.S. military raid captured then-President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump has raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in Venezuela. His administration has signaled its willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president and, along with others in the deposed leader’s inner circle, remains in charge of day-to-day governmental operations.
In endorsing Rodríguez so far, Trump has sidelined Machado, who has long been a face of resistance in Venezuela and sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key administration voices like Secretary of State Marco Rubio among the American right wing in a gamble to ally herself with the U.S. government.
The White House says Machado sought the face-to-face meeting with Trump without setting expectations for what would occur. Her party is widely believed to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro. Machado previously offered to share with Trump the Nobel Peace Prize she won last year, an honor he has coveted.
Machado plans to have a meeting at the Senate following her lunch with Trump, who has called her “a nice woman” while indicating they might not touch on major issues in their talks Thursday.
Her Washington swing began after U.S. forces in the Caribbean Sea seized another sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says had ties to Venezuela. It is part of a broader U.S. effort to take control of the South American country’s oil after U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
The White House says Venezuela has been fully cooperating with the Trump administration since Maduro’s ouster.
Rodríguez, the acting president, herself has adopted a less strident position toward Trump and his “America First” policies toward the Western Hemisphere, saying she plans to continue releasing prisoners detained under Maduro — a move thought to have been made at the behest of the Trump administration. Venezuela released several Americans this week.
Trump, a Republican, said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodríguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump said during an Oval Office bill signing. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”
Even before indicating the willingness to work with Venezuela's interim government, Trump was quick to snub Machado. Just hours after Maduro's capture, Trump said of Machado that “it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”
Machado has steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after winning last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump wanted to win himself. She has since thanked Trump. Her offer to share the peace prize with him was rejected by the Nobel Institute.
Machado’s whereabouts have been largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the nongovernmental organization she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.
A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office lives in the collective memory. Chávez considered Bush an adversary.
Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown by state security forces.
Garcia Cano reported from Caracas, Venezuela, and Janetsky from Mexico City. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE - U.S. President George Bush, right, meets with Maria Corina Machado, executive director of Sumate, a non-governmental organization that defends Venezuelan citizens' political rights, in the Oval Office of the White House, Washington, May 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gestures to supporters during a protest against President Nicolas Maduro the day before his inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, file)
