Nobody has come out and explicitly said it yet, but things aren’t going to plan in Catarina Macario’s recovery from a torn ACL.
It’s been 11 months now since Macario suffered the injury during Lyon’s final match of the season. As Lyon nears the end of its following campaign, Macario is still nowhere to be found.
It’s an increasingly worrying development for club and country, as the clock continues to tick toward the World Cup this summer. Every day that goes by without Macario back on the pitch takes her closer to missing the chance to compete on the game’s biggest stage.
The recovery was supposed to be farther along for Macario, who debuted with the U.S. women’s national team in 2021 and really hit her stride in early 2022, scoring five goals in five appearances before her injury.
Macario played in a variety of roles but was especially devastating as a false nine, where she could create for teammates and get into prime goalscoring positions herself.
The injury halted Macario’s momentum but with more than a year to go before the World Cup, it seemed like she’d have plenty of time recover before Australia-New Zealand.
By February, Macario was still not back on the training pitch, but USWNT coach Vlatko Andonovski offered an encouraging update.
“She’s going back to Lyon to start team training [in the] middle of February,” said the USWNT coach. “Hopefully we can see her starting playing for her club team sometime in the second half of March.”
Andonovski added that he expected Macario back for April camp.
When April camp arrived and Macario still wasn’t back, Andonovski offered a more cautious update.
“We have to see her on the field,” the coach said when asked about Macario’s chances of making the World Cup roster. “Cat has to get back in a professional environment, play professional games, competitive games, games that matter.”
One month after those comments, Macario has yet to make a matchday squad for Lyon, which now only has three games left of the season.
Even if Macario returns for Lyon before the season ends, taking her to the World Cup would be something of a risk. At the most she’d only have a couple “games that matter” under her belt in more than a year, none of which would have come with the USWNT since April 2022.
Macario is the kind of talent that’s worth taking a risk for, but at this point it’s unclear if she’ll be healthy enough for Andonovski to even consider. That would be a devastating blow for a player who looked certain to be a cornerstone for the USWNT’s title defense.
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