USMNT star Josh Sargent reveals how long he has been nursing ankle injury – with long-running issue seeing Premier League-linked Norwich striker require surgery & regular rest

The 24-year-old frontman has just enjoyed the most productive campaign of his career in front of goal – with 16 efforts recorded for Norwich in their bid to secure promotion back into the Premier League. That haul was achieved despite sitting out four months through injury.

Sargent is now in the United States’ squad for a Copa America on home soil and has told the Men In Blazers podcast of how he is managing fitness issues that have been troubling him since late 2022: “It is feeling good at the moment. It is kind of a day-by-day thing. I have been training with the guys the past couple of days and everything is going well. Hopefully it stays that way. For a while now, pretty much ever since the World Cup it is that balance to push the ankle or rest it. That has been a lot of talking with my club and national team. I am doing everything I can. After a big operation there are bound to be little things that aggravate the ankle. I didn’t know how it would be coming to the friendlies. It didn’t feel great but I put in a lot of work with the physios. Gregg [Berhalter] has put his faith in me to pull this around and get some minutes in this tournament and do well.”

The USMNT are confident of holding their own in Copa America competition, with Sargent adding on collective ambition following a 5-1 friendly defeat to Colombia and 1-1 draw with Brazil: “I don’t know what went on in the Colombia game but it was day and night with Brazil in terms of our approach and mentality. That is the real US and we know in a tournament like this we all have to be dialled in and at our absolute best.

"This is a big moment and we need to show that grit and firepower and stick together as a team if we want to have a chance to win this thing. We want people to know that we have a lot of good young players coming up with the passion to play for that crest, and hopefully we represent that. As a group we have talked about it and when you go into a tournament the goal is to win it. But we know there are some of the best teams in the world. We might not have as many skilful players but as a team we can be better.”

The United States will get their Copa America campaign up and running at AT&T Stadium against Bolivia on Sunday. A positive result in that contest will set them up for further Group C outings against Panama and Uruguay.