Neymar will miss Brazil’s match against Switzerland with ankle injury

Reports in Brazil suggested that the forward would be out for the remainder of the group stage

Neymar will miss Brazil’s next World Cup match against Switzerland with an ankle injury, team doctor Rodrigo Lasmar has confirmed.

The forward went down under a heavy challenge against Serbia on Thursday in Brazil’s World Cup opener, a 2-0 victory.

There were fears of a serious injury after Neymar was seen distraught on the bench after being withdrawn, followed by the sight of his badly swollen ankle.

O Globo has reported that Neymar will be out for the remainder of the group stage, but Lasmer would only go as far as to rule him (as well as defender Danilo) out for the team’s game against Switzerland on Monday.

“Neymar and Danilo started treatment yesterday (Thursday) immediately after our game,” Lasmer said in a video released by Brazil. “Today (Friday) in the morning they were reassessed and as we had already advanced in yesterday’s interview, through today’s physical assessment we thought it was important to do an image exam, an MRI so that we had more data on the evolution of the two players.

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“The scans showed a lateral ligament injury to Neymar’s right ankle along with a small bone swelling. And a medial ligament injury to Danilo’s left ankle. Players remain in treatment. It is very important for us to be very calm, peaceful, this assessment will be carried out daily so that we have information and make the best decisions based on that.

“We can already say that we will not have the two players for our next game, but they remain in treatment with our objective of trying to recover in time for this competition.”

After facing Switzerland, Brazil will complete group play on December 2 against Cameroon. Should it avoid catastrophe, the Selecao’s next match would be either December 5 or 6 in the round of 16.

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