Benjamin Sesko withdraws from Slovenia squad due to recurring shin injury

Benjamin Sesko has pulled out of Slovenia’s squad for their upcoming Nations League fixtures after a recurring shin injury flared up again, extending a frustrating pattern that has kept the striker away from international duty for nearly a year.

The 22-year-old withdrew on September 20, 2026, the same day he sat out Manchester United’s Premier League match against Fulham. The pain resurfaced after he featured in United’s Carabao Cup defeat to Brighton on September 14, and manager Michael Carrick confirmed the forward is undergoing ongoing assessments with no return timeline in sight.

A familiar problem with no clear fix

This is not a new issue for Sesko. The same shin complaint sidelined him for the tail end of the 2025-26 season and kept him out of United’s entire preseason program.

Sesko has not pulled on a Slovenia shirt since October 2025. That is nearly twelve months without representing his country, a stretch that includes multiple missed call-ups throughout 2026.

He is now at risk of sitting out Slovenia’s upcoming matches against Scotland, North Macedonia, and Switzerland.

Reports suggest further diagnostic work, potentially including an MRI, will be needed to determine the full extent of the issue.

The weight of a €76.5M price tag

Manchester United signed Sesko from RB Leipzig in the summer of 2025 for an initial fee of €76.5 million, with add-ons that could push the total to around €90 million.

But fitness has been the asterisk next to his name since arriving at Old Trafford. When healthy, he has shown flashes of the player United thought they were buying.

Club vs. country tensions simmer

The dynamic between Manchester United and the Slovenian Football Association has been quietly tense throughout 2026. Slovenia manager Boštjan Cesar has recently struck a more conciliatory tone regarding Sesko’s situation, suggesting an understanding of the medical reality.

Slovenia’s Nations League campaign matters for their coefficient ranking and potential qualification pathways. Every match without Sesko is a match where they are measurably weaker.

What comes next

The immediate concern for all parties is getting a definitive answer on the nature of this shin problem. The fact that Sesko has dealt with this across multiple windows of absence, missing the end of last season, all of preseason, and now re-emerging just weeks into the new campaign, suggests this sits closer to the serious end of that spectrum.

The MRI results, whenever they arrive, will tell the club whether they are dealing with a speed bump or something that requires a fundamentally different approach to how they use their record signing going forward.

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