First brake in a lightning climb. Young PSG midfielder Warren Zaire-Emery, victim of a sprained right ankle on Saturday during his first selection for Blue, will not play again in 2023 and will miss the Parisian club’s next decisive matches. The verdict was expected, it fell Monday evening: “medium severity sprain of the right ankle”, announced PSG in a press release. His 17-year-old prodigy “will remain in care until the winter break”, i.e. until the end of the year.
The Parisian club will notably have to do without him during the next two Champions League matches against Newcastle, next Tuesday, then at Dortmund on December 13, decisive for qualification in the round of 16. “WZE”, which became a key part of Luis Enrique’s team despite his very young age, will also miss at least five Ligue 1 matches before returning to the field in 2024.
A big blow for the Parisian club, knowing that the midfielder is one of the players most used by the Spanish coach this season: he participated in fifteen of the sixteen games played by PSG, in all competitions, very often playing all matches, scoring two goals and providing two assists.
New star of the France team, Warren Zaire-Emery was injured when scoring his first international goal, in his first selection, in the 16th minute of the match against Gibraltar – which turned into a total demonstration (14- 0, a record in the history of the Blues). After an uncontrolled tackle from defender Ethan Santos, immediately excluded for this gesture, it was on the ground and grimacing that the new international celebrated his first goal in Blue.
“Frustrated” but “proud”
A few minutes earlier, at 17 years, eight months and 10 days, he had become the youngest player to play in the French team since the First World War, better than Eduardo Camavinga, who was 17 years, nine months and 28 days during his first selection against Croatia (4-2 victory) in 2020. “Frustrated to have had to leave the field so quickly but also proud and honored to have celebrated my first selection with a goal,” he wrote on Sunday on Instagram, adding: “Let’s get back to work as soon as possible. »
He had logically left the Blues in the wake of the match against Gibraltar in Nice, drawing a line under the trip to Greece, where France will play its last match of the year on Tuesday for qualifying for Euro 2024. Despite the absence of a fracture, “it remains a significant injury which will certainly take (…) several weeks”, anticipated the Blues coach Didier Deschamps during the Sunday Téléfoot show, on TF1.