CHICAGO (AP) — Chris Richards joined the U.S. for training on Friday in Chicago in a positive sign for the top American defender as he tries to make it back in time for the World Cup.
Richards tore two ligaments in his left ankle while playing for England's Crystal Palace on May 17. He has been ruled out for Saturday's friendly against Germany, but the U.S. is holding out hope that he might be able to play in its World Cup opener next week against Paraguay.
“Chris Richards is on the right path to coming back and being completely with the squad,” midfielder Weston McKennie said. “I think everyone trusts his body and what he feels and the coaching staff as well. He’s an important piece of the group, (with) his energy, his leadership on and off the field. And so obviously we’re just all behind him and can’t wait to have him back and out with the group."
During the 15-minute portion of practice that was open to the media, the 26-year-old Richards showed no signs of any issues as he warmed up with the rest of the team at Endeavor Health Performance Center, the practice home for Major League Soccer's Chicago Fire.
Richards, who missed the 2022 World Cup because of a hamstring injury, is considered the best central defender for the United States.
“His training and his evolution is well, but he still is not ready to compete and to play,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said before practice.
Pochettino and the U.S. are running out of time when it comes to making a decision on Richards. They can replace injured players on their 26-man roster until Thursday.
“Maybe this is the final of the World Cup, maybe he can play,” Pochettino said of Saturday's game at Soldier Field, “but the advice of the medical area is not to play.”
The U.S. is coming off a 3-2 victory over Senegal on Sunday. Following its matchup with Paraguay, the U.S. also has Group D games against Australia on June 19 and Turkey on June 25.
Germany also is playing its last friendly before its World Cup opener on June 14 against Curacao. It also has Group E games against the Ivory Coast on June 20 and Ecuador on June 25.
“We’ll be going into this game with a lot of players that haven’t played against them yet, and players that have,” McKennie said, “so I think the new energy, the new style, the new, just circumstances in general leading into a World Cup, I think it’s going to be a great test for us.”
The U.S. has 13 players who were on Gregg Berhalter's roster for the 2022 World Cup, including 11 who made an appearance in Qatar. Berhalter was fired 10 months into his second stint as U.S. coach, but he took over the Fire when he was hired as head coach and director of football in October 2024.
Berhalter got a chance to catch up with his son, Sebastian, a midfielder on the U.S. team, and some of his former players with the Americans practicing at the Fire's facility.
“When I got them, they were young. They were babies and they were just learning what it takes to be a professional athlete,” Gregg Berhalter said. “And now when I see them, they're men. They have kids. They're adults, and they know exactly what it means to maintain themselves as professionals. And it's an amazing thing to see.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - United States defender Chris Richards controls the ball during a friendly soccer match against Japan, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jeff Dean, File)
CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (AP) — The U.S. military said it shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz on Friday and then struck some of the Islamic Republic’s coastal surveillance radar sites in response, raising the risk to a shaky ceasefire as the Trump administration ramps up pressure on Iran.
“The attack drones posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic,” U.S. Central Command said on social media.
Hours later, Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain, Central Command said.
“Initial assessments indicate six of the missiles launched by Iran were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its intended target,” the U.S. military said.
Kuwaiti’s military said forces were intercepting missiles and drones attacking the country, while Bahrain activated air raid sirens and told residents to move to the nearest safe location and follow official instructions.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it targeted “enemy bases” in the region, after U.S. strikes on an island in the Strait of Hormuz, state-run media reported.
The U.S. military is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s chokehold on the crucial corridor for global oil and natural gas shipments, which has sent energy prices spiking and posed political problems for President Donald Trump's Republican Party ahead of the midterm congressional elections.
U.S. Central Command said it hit the radar sites, including an island in the strait, “to defend against further attacks.”
It was the latest in back-and-forth attacks that have strained the tenuous ceasefire in the war and efforts to reach a deal to extend that truce. Earlier this week, Iranian drones heavily damaged a passenger terminal at Kuwait’s main airport, killing one person, wounding dozens and briefly closing the airfield.
Despite the attacks raising new concerns that the ceasefire could collapse, Trump told reporters Friday that “the situation with Iran seems to be going quite well.”
“We’re going to come out of Iran very quickly and it’s going to be very strong one way or the other, whether it’s a piece of paper or the very tough way,” Trump said at an event with farmers in Wisconsin. “The very tough way is maybe the easier way, but we’re going to come out, and your fertilizer prices are going to go way down, just like they were four months ago.”
Trump increasingly appears to be boxed in on a conflict that has settled into a holding pattern. U.S. and Iranian negotiators reached a tentative agreement a week ago to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start a new round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program. But Trump has called for unspecified changes and Iranian officials have shown no public signs of signing off on the deal.
Asked on Friday why it was taking so long, Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” it was because “it’s a very hard thing for them,” citing their “great independence” and the fact that “they’re strong, they’re proud.”
“There are things they never thought they’d be doing that they’re going to have to do. They’ve got no choice, and it takes a little while,” he said in the interview.
Trump said the Iranians still have 21% to 22% of their missiles.
His administration also has touted the latest ceasefire agreed to this week by the Lebanese government and Israel after U.S.-brokered talks in Washington. However, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group has rejected the agreement and new attacks have put it at further risk.
The Israeli military on Friday struck multiple parts of southern Lebanon and issued evacuation warnings for nine villages, including one that has sheltered thousands of people displaced by the fighting. The strikes killed nine people in six locations in southern Lebanon, the state news agency reported.
The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, in an encounter Friday with militants in southern Lebanon.
The fighting in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have seized large swaths of the south, also threatens efforts to end the Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz because Iran has demanded that any lasting truce extend to Lebanon.
Besides the drone interception in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military said earlier Friday that its forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker linked to Iran in the Indian Ocean as the United States seeks to prevent Iran from profiting off its oil and other goods.
The U.S. also targeted Iran’s energy sector with new sanctions on a group of people, firms and tankers.
__
Magdy reported from Cairo.
President Donald Trump arrives to speak to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Joint Base Andrews, Md., to Eau Claire, Wis., Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
FILE - The Pentagon is viewed from the window of an airplane Aug. 27, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
