Dejan Kulusevski's Race Against Time for World Cup

Dejan Kulusevski is fighting the clock and his own body.

Out since May 2025 with a stubborn patella injury, the Tottenham winger has spent a year in the shadows, trading packed stadiums for treatment rooms and gym sessions. A minor follow-up procedure has extended that exile, and now every day of rehab feels like a countdown: can he make Graham Potter’s Sweden squad for this summer’s World Cup in North America?

Right now, even his club manager isn’t sure.

De Zerbi’s realism vs Kulusevski’s belief

Roberto De Zerbi cut through the sentiment when asked about Kulusevski’s chances.

“I don’t know the situation well. For me, it’s difficult to understand how he can play at the World Cup if he didn’t play any games this season,” he admitted.

It was blunt, and it was fair. Kulusevski hasn’t kicked a ball in anger for a year. Tournament football is unforgiving; it rarely waits for romantic comebacks.

Yet De Zerbi’s realism came with a hint of hope. The Italian revealed he had messaged the forward after the win over Aston Villa and expects him back at Hotspur Way soon to continue his rehabilitation.

“He told me in the next week, I think, he comes back. And I hope he can be available to stay with us in the last game because he is an amazing player.”

That last line matters. Tottenham’s season has been bruising, but inside the club they still see Kulusevski as a difference-maker, someone worth waiting for even if it’s just to have him on the pitch for a final-day cameo.

For the player himself, the target is set much higher.

“If there is one person on the planet…”

Sweden missed the 2022 World Cup. For a football nation used to the big stage, that hurt. For a player of Kulusevski’s ambition, it left a scar.

He has been open about both the scale of the challenge and the size of his own conviction.

“I haven't played in a year. I know what the chances are,” he told Viaplay. “But if there is one person on the planet who can do this, I would bet on myself.”

This isn’t empty bravado. It’s a manifesto.

“And we are not just going there to participate. Sweden will aim to be one of the best. As long as I live, I will do everything I can so that Sweden, when we go out and play, will not be afraid of anyone. Brazil, France, whoever they are. That's why I'm on this planet. To give faith and love to my people.”

Those are the words of a player who sees the World Cup as more than a tournament. For Kulusevski, it is a stage on which he can carry a nation that has been waiting to feel relevant again in global football.

The question is whether his body will let him get there.

Richarlison scare eased

While Kulusevski works alone on long-term recovery, Tottenham had a more immediate worry this week.

Richarlison, fresh from a key role in the 2-1 win over Aston Villa, was absent from training on Wednesday. He scored in the first half at Villa Park and ran himself into the ground before being substituted late on, raising concerns that another injury might be brewing for a player whose Spurs career has already been repeatedly interrupted by fitness issues.

Not this time.

De Zerbi moved quickly to calm any anxiety, framing the absence as a necessary breather rather than a setback.

“Yes [he missed training] because he worked very hard [against Villa],” he said. “I think my mistake was not to substitute him before the end of the game. But Richarlison was playing very well, he was important in the set-pieces and he played a great game. But just fatigue.”

Just fatigue. Two words Tottenham have been desperate to hear in a season where “muscle problem” and “out for several weeks” have become recurring themes.

Richarlison’s energy and edge were central to that win over Villa, a result that carried weight far beyond three points.

Breathing space, but no comfort

The victory dragged Spurs out of the Premier League relegation zone and gave De Zerbi something he has barely had since walking through the door: a little breathing room.

It is thin air, though. The table remains tight, the margins brutal. One bad week and the pressure returns with full force.

Inside the club, the focus has shifted to survival mode: managing minutes, protecting bodies, squeezing every last drop out of a squad that has taken a pounding. The medical staff have become as important as the analysts. Every training session is a calculation. Every sprint, every duel, a risk weighed against necessity.

De Zerbi wants as many options as possible for the final stretch. Even the faint possibility of Kulusevski featuring in the last game of the season is treated as a bonus, a potential injection of quality and emotion when it might matter most.

The run-in and the bigger picture

Tottenham’s final three league fixtures are loaded with narrative and jeopardy.

Leeds on Monday night: a game that feels like a six-pointer, the kind that can drag you back into trouble or finally shove you clear of it.

Chelsea after that: a meeting with a rival whose own chaos has offered little comfort to Spurs fans living through their own.

Everton on the final day: a club that knows all about survival battles and late-season drama.

Threaded through all of this is Kulusevski’s story. Can he accelerate his rehab enough to pull on the shirt before the campaign ends? Can he convince Potter and Sweden’s medical team that a year of absence can be overridden by a few weeks of sharpness?

Tottenham are fighting to stay in the division. Kulusevski is fighting to get back to the level where he can drag a country onto the world stage.

One club, one player, two races against time. Only the closing weeks of this season will reveal who makes it over the line.