Canada ‘shaken’ by horror Ismael Kone injury as manager Jesse Marsch fights back tears

Canada coach Jesse Marsch admitted the whole squad had been “shaken” by a horror injury to midfielder Ismael Kone, who has been rushed to hospital with a suspected broken leg after their World Cup win over Qatar.

Kone was fouled by Qatar’s Assim Madibo close to the dugout, with Marsch saying everyone on the bench “could hear the bone snap”.

Kone was able to sit up as he was carried off the field on a stretcher, on a day when Canada’s 6-0 victory, featuring a Jonathan David hat-trick, was their first ever in a World Cup finals.

Marsch, who had been visibly emotional after the incident, said: “I haven’t spoken to Ismael yet, he’s at the hospital, he will prepare for a surgery. I’m going to see him after this press conference.

“We’ll see exactly what we decide to do for him. His family is with him at the hospital. It happened right in front of the bench – everyone could hear the bone snap.

“Your heart goes out to him, and everybody’s a little shaken by the experience, because of the nature of the injury and also because Ismael is a big part of the team.

“You saw also that he was waving to the crowd and almost making everybody else feel at ease with the fact that he’s injured, and that’s an incredible statement about Ismael as a person, but this is (also) our team.

“I’ve been trying to tell people for two years about the special character of this group, and it gets highlighted in moments of challenge and in moments of glory.

“Today was a representation of all of that, and you got to see how the team, everybody was crushed when it happened, but we had to find a way to stay focused. We knew that Ismael wanted us to finish the job.”

Madibo, who was visibly upset himself at seeing the distress Kone was in, was sent off after a VAR review to reduce Qatar to nine men, following Homam Ahmed’s first-half dismissal.

Marsch added: “Let me be clear, the player apologised to Ismael, came into the dressing room and apologised to him and Ismael told the team that had happened. So I don’t think that he meant such a gruesome tackle or gruesome situation.

“But I don’t understand a reaction from their entire bench to try to start a fight about it being a red card when a clear foul just happened that broke a player’s leg.”

Marsch and his Qatar counterpart Julen Lopetegui had a testy exchange after the match, but neither man wished to divulge the details.

“I’m not spending one second (discussing it), it’s not worth any of our time to discuss,” Marsch said.

Lopetegui insisted there was no “intention” of Madibo to injure Kone, adding: “First of all I want to wish all the best to Kone and to recover as soon as possible. I wish all the best to him.”

The incident took some of the shine off a historic day for Canada. As well as David’s treble, Cyle Larin and Nathan Saliba, who came on for Kone, were also on target. Canada’s fifth was an own goal by Mohamed Manai.

Marsch added: “No Canadian will forget this day. There’ll be 40m people that said they were here, and and it’s an incredibly seminal moment for everyone to understand that there’s talent in this country, that there’s mentality, that there’s desire, that there’s a lot of things that make this country special.”

PA