Netherlands midfielder Xavi Simons will miss the World Cup as well as relegation-threatened Tottenham 's final Premier League games of the season after rupturing the ACL in his right knee.
In an emotional post on Instagram, the 23-year-old Simons — one of the best Dutch players at the European Championship in 2024 — said he is “heartbroken” and that “none of it makes sense.”
Simons screamed in pain and grabbed his knee following a challenge by Wolverhampton defender Hugo Bueno in the second half of Tottenham's 1-0 win on Saturday that renewed the team's hopes of staying in the top flight. He was carried off on a stretcher.
On Monday, Tottenham confirmed Simons ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament and will undergo surgery “in the coming weeks.”
“Everyone at Tottenham Hotspur sends Xavi our love and support — we will be with him every step of the way,” the club said.
In his Instagram post, Simons wrote “my season has come to an abrupt end and I’m just trying to process it.”
“All I’ve wanted to do is fight for my team and now the ability to do that has been snatched away from me … along with the World Cup,” he wrote. “Representing my country this summer … just gone.
“It’ll take time to find peace with this, but I’ll continue to be the best teammate I can be. I have no doubt that together we’ll win this fight.”
Tottenham remained in the relegation zone, in third-to-last place and two points from safety, despite its first league win in 2026, and is in big danger of losing its top-flight status for the first time since the late 1970s. Tottenham has four games left this season.
Simons, who joined from Leipzig for 60 million euros ($70 million) in the offseason, hasn't been a regular starter for Spurs but has been in the lineup in recent matches under newly hired manager Roberto De Zerbi.
He helped the Dutch reach the semifinals at Euro 2024 and was expected to be key for the team at the World Cup, where they're in a group with Sweden, Tunisia and Japan
Their first match is against Japan on June 14.
“I’ll walk this path now, guided by faith, with strength, with resilience, with belief, as I count down the days to getting back out there,” Simons wrote. “Be patient with me.”
Simons joins France striker Hugo Ekitike (Achilles) in being ruled out of the World Cup after sustaining a late-season injury.
There are also concerns over the fitness of Spain winger Lamine Yamal, Egypt star Mohamed Salah and Brazil forward Estevao ahead of the tournament.
Yamal was ruled out for the rest of the club season last week after sustaining a muscle injury in his left leg while converting a penalty for Barcelona in a La Liga match. Barca said its medical staff “foresee that (Yamal) will be available for the World Cup.”
Salah picked up a suspected hamstring injury playing for Liverpool in the Premier League on Saturday. Liverpool manager Arne Slot said he did not know if Salah would play again this season.
Estevao will miss the rest of Chelsea's season with a hamstring injury and is a doubt for the World Cup.
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Tottenham Hotspur's Xavi Simons celebrates scoring their side's second goal of the game during their English Premier League soccer match against Brighton & Hove Albion in London, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Jordan Pettitt/PA via AP)
Tottenham Hotspur's Xavi Simons is stretchered off the pitch during the English Premier League soccer match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur in Wolverhampton, England, Saturday April 25, 2026. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
Tottenham Hotspur's Xavi Simons before stretchered off during the English Premier League soccer match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Tottenham Hotspur in Wolverhampton, England, Saturday April 25, 2026. (Nick Potts/PA via AP)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, arrived at the Vatican on Monday for an audience with Pope Leo XIV, making her first foreign visit since being installed as the first woman leader of the Church of England and spiritual leader of millions of Anglicans around the world.
Mullally, whose appointment has split the already divided Anglican Communion, arrived early to meet with Leo in his library. Later, they were to go to into the Urban VIII Chapel inside the Apostolic palace for what the Vatican said would be a “moment of prayer.”
Mullally is on a four-day pilgrimage to Rome that has included visits to the main pontifical basilicas, where she has prayed at the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul and met with top Vatican officials.
Lambeth Palace says her visit is designed “to strengthen Anglican–Roman Catholic relations through prayer, personal encounter, and formal theological dialogue. It aims to deepen bonds of communion, affirm a shared witness, and encourage ongoing collaboration at both global and local levels.”
Anglicans split from Rome in 1534, when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. Despite a formal theological dialogue that began in the 1960s, big differences remain, especially over the Church of England’s decision to ordain women. The Roman Catholic Church reserves the priesthood for men.
The first female Anglican priests were ordained in 1994, its first female bishop in 2015, and now Mullally as the first archbishop of Canterbury.
Her appointment though has split the Anglican Communion, whose 100 million members in 165 countries are deeply divided over issues such as the role of women and the treatment of LGBTQ+ people. Many in England and other Western countries hailed her appointment as a historic breaking of a stained-glass ceiling.
But the communion’s largest and fastest-growing churches in Africa belong to a conservative group called the Global Anglican Future Conference, or Gafcon, which has sharply criticized her appointment and threatened a final break. In the U.S., the conservative Anglican Church in North America formed in a break from the more liberal U.S. and Canadian Episcopal churches and has signed onto the Gafcon statement opposing Mullally’s appointment.
Leo and Mullally have already exchanged greetings, with Leo congratulating her on her installation last month but acknowledging she was taking over at a “challenging” time and that differences still divide the Anglican and Catholic churches.
“We also know that the ecumenical journey has not always been smooth,” Leo wrote. “Despite much progress, our immediate predecessors, Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby, acknowledged frankly that new circumstances have presented new disagreements among us,” Leo wrote.
He nevertheless vowed to continue dialogue, and in October Leo welcomed King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the Vatican, where they prayed in the Sistine Chapel. Charles is the titular head of the Church of England.
That event, Oct. 25, marked the first time since the Reformation that the heads of the two Christian churches had prayed together.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first formal ecumenical statement between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, signed in 1966 at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls basilica by Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI.
Mullally for her part has expressed solidarity with Leo’s peace message, after the American-born pope was harshly criticized by President Donald Trump for his calls for peace in Iran.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Pope Leo XIV leaves after presiding over Sunday Mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican during which he made ten new priests, Sunday, April 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
FILE - Sarah Mullally speaks to the public after the Enthronement Ceremony installing her as archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury, England, Wednesday, March 25, 2026, the first woman ever to lead the Church of England. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
