Injured N'Golo Kante will reportedly miss World Cup, and France will learn how irreplaceable he is

N'Golo Kante, the superhuman midfielder who helped power France to a 2018 World Cup triumph, will reportedly miss the 2022 edition of soccer's showpiece after injuring his hamstring in training.

Chelsea manager Graham Potter said Friday that Kante's injury was "a setback" and "not good news." The 31-year-old had returned to training nearly two months after initially straining his hamstring in August, but re-aggravated it this past week.

Neither Potter nor the club has given a fresh timetable for Kante's recovery. Potter said he'll visit a specialist this weekend. But French and English media both reported Friday that Kante will be out for three months.

He'll therefore miss the World Cup, which begins Nov. 20 — and France will find out just how irreplaceable Kante is.

He is just one member of the most talented player pool in international soccer. But he is one-of-a-kind. Some players are multi-positional; Kante plays multiple positions at once. For both France and Chelsea, and previously for Leicester City, he could shield a back line and anchor a press and carry the ball in transition. At the height of his powers, coaches and pundits would joke that Kante allowed his teams to play a 4-5-2 or 4-4-3 — formations with 12 players.

He was pretty darn close to the height of his powers in 2018, when France boss Didier Deschamps deployed Kante as his defensive midfielder at the World Cup. France played seven games in Russia, and conceded from open play in only two of them. And in one of those two, Kante was slowed by illness. When healthy, he gobbled up any hint of an opponent attack. Even as he aged into his 30s, he was, in the words of then-Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, "super important."

But he also played in a conservative French structure that systemically suppressed opponents. What we will learn next month in Qatar is how integral to that structure Kante was. Deschamps, as always, will rein in France's unparalleled talent. Perhaps Les Bleus will once again be impenetrable; or perhaps they won't.

What's certain now is that they will be different. With Paul Pogba also an injury doubt, and Blaise Matuidi 35 and out of the national team picture, France could head to to the World Cup without all three of its starting midfielders from 2018.

One likely replacement is Real Madrid's Aurelien Tchouameni, one of the most coveted central midfielders in the world. But he's not Kante. Nor are Adrien Rabiot, Eduardo Camavinga and Matteo Guendouzi. Nobody is.

And that, in a nutshell, is France's latest of many problems as the World Cup nears.