Sergiño Dest made his long-awaited return from a serious knee injury in PSV Eindhoven’s 2-1 win over Heerenveen in the Dutch Eredivisie on Saturday.
The United States men’s national team defender came on as a substitute in the 67th minute for his first appearance in almost 11 months, since suffering an ACL tear in April last year.
Dest replaced Richard Ledezma and had a warm embrace with his fellow U.S. international before entering the match at the Philips Stadion.
“I am immensely happy to be back,” Dest was quoted as saying by PSV’s website. “The supporters and the players took good care of me and I’m very grateful for that.”
He added: “Before the game all I thought was, I want to get in and play again. Fortunately, the coach gave me a half-hour which was super nice. I also went straight into the duels and was just driven to seek them out. Of course I have to take it easy and be careful, but it felt good.”
The victory, secured by goals from Ismael Saibari and Guus Til ended a run of three straight defeats for PSV and cut the gap to Eredivisie leaders Ajax to five points, though having played a game more.
“I’m glad we took the three points tonight,” Dest said. “There are nine more games to go that we all have to win. We can and should only look forward now. In those nine games we have to make up for it.”
PSV will next be in action in the second leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie at Arsenal on Wednesday. However, Dest’s side have little chance of progressing after suffering an emphatic 7-1 defeat at home to the Premier League side in the first leg last week.
Dest has 33 caps for the USMNT but has been unavailable for selection since Mauricio Pochettino took over as coach last September. Pochettino is set to name his roster for the Concacaf Nations League finals on Tuesday. The U.S. will face Panama in the semifinals on March 20.
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