The American striker suffered an injury while scoring in PSV Eindhoven’s 5-1 win over Excelsior Rotterdam.
Ricardo Pepi was substituted after just 26 minutes on Saturday after suffering a broken forearm. The American striker scored what turned out to be the winning goal, but landed hard on his left arm as the ball rolled across the line. Pepi is undergoing surgery on Sunday and is expected to miss two months.
The injury comes at a bad time for the American. Pepi’s strike against Excelsior marked his fifth consecutive Eredivisie game with a goal, taking his tally up to eight on the season. He has a further three goals in the Champions League and was on track for a career-best year.
Unsurprisingly, his form attracted interest. Fulham put in a bid worth €30 million, according to The Athletic, but PSV had no intention of selling.
“Pepi was on a good run, had a strong training camp and was all the way back,” said head coach Peter Bosz after the game. “He became more confident in his finishing and was in that good flow again.”
Pepi was projected to be the United States’ number two striker behind Folarin Balogun going into the World Cup. Four years ago, he surprisingly missed out on Gregg Berhalter’s squad in Qatar despite a strong start to the season with FC Groningen.
That didn’t stop Pepi. He returned to the Eredivisie, and he scored nine goals and assisted three in his first season with PSV. Last year, he continued to improve, as he scored 16 goals and assisted two before an injury ended his season.
After a slow start this year, Pepi had finally started to look like his old self again. He had eleven goals and two assists in all competitions at the time of his injury. This included a memorable cameo against Napoli, where he scored and assisted within five minutes of entering the pitch in a dominant 6-2 win.
Had he kept up his form in the Netherlands, Pepi had a chance to start for Mauricio Pochettino. The injury now potentially puts the PSV star’s spot in the squad in jeopardy.
The US currently has a strong striker pool, with Haji Wright, Patrick Agyemang, and Josh Sargent all having solid seasons in the Championship. That’s ignoring Balogun, who has eleven goal contributions for Monaco this season and scored in each of his last three US starts.
Pepi, meanwhile, has played only four games under Pochettino since the Argentine was hired. The PSV striker will not return until March at the earliest, giving him only a few months to return to form.
It’s not the first time Pepi has dealt with injuries. The striker missed the start of the season with a knee injury, which had prematurely ended his 2024/25 season. As a result, the 23-year-old has been limited to just one appearance for the US national team in 2025 and has made only 33 Eredivisie appearances over the past two seasons.
PSV have something of an injury crisis in attack at the moment. In addition to Pepi, forwards Alassane Pléa and Myron Boadu suffered knee injuries earlier this season. Both will miss at least a few more weeks.
Midfielder Guus Til has played striker at times this season with great success. His eleven league goals trail only Feyenoord’s Ayase Ueda. Midfielder Ismael Saibari, who is currently at AFCON with Morocco, was listed as another potential solution by Bosz.
PSV currently sit 14 points clear at the top of the Eredivisie with a league-high 57 goals.
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Image via psv.nl.
