HOUSTON – The Houston Dynamo cannot shake the injury bug.
Already missing regular Boniek García, Houston added Brad Davis and Adam Moffat (pictured, above) to the list of injuries after just one half against Toronto FC. The Dynamo made it through the match against TFC with a 1-1 draw, and are now wondering what their team will look like in this Sunday's clash against the Colorado Rapids (4 pm CT, Buy Tickets).
While the Dynamo will be thankful the injuries are not serious ones, they are still causing a headache as far as week-to-week preparation goes.
"You don’t want players to get injured at all, but if they do you’d like to see it spread out through the course of a season and not all at once,” head coach Dominic Kinnear said. “It happens to pretty much every team in MLS during the course of the year.”
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Davis injured his groin Saturday going up for a header to close the end of the half that caused him to be lifted during the break. Moffat also suffered his hamstring injury during the latter stages of the first half – after trying to get to the break, he ended up being subbed off in the 41st minute.
Kinnear made the decision to remove both players rather than risk further injury in the frigid temperatures.
“It’s one of those [situations] where you had to really be careful and make sure nothing gets worse,” Kinnear said. “It wasn’t an ideal situation. Hopefully it speeds up their recoveries and they’ll be available for the next game.”
Adding to the list of players injured is Omar Cummings. Acquired in December to pair with Will Bruin, the Jamaican striker has missed two games due to injury also, but has only seen spot duty since returning from a preseason knee surgery. He has struggled to get fit since, and the lingering effects have kept him off the team sheet the last three weeks.
An Achilles strain has kept Garcia out of action against the Portland Timbers and the Chicago Fire in recent weeks and he trained only one day in the week leading to the match against Toronto. He did return to the team sheet for the match, but was unused.
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"He was an option ... we didn’t think 45 minutes in those conditions would be a good thing for him,” Kinnear said. “He wasn’t there just to make up numbers, he could play. As this week goes on I’d imagine he’d be in the running for minutes this weekend.”
If Davis is a scratch for Sunday’s game, getting Garcia back to play opposite Andrew Driver would be a lift.
"I was probably ready to play five or 10 minutes [last week] to get back into a rhythm,” Garcia said through a translator. “We’ll see how it goes this week and hopefully I’m able to play this weekend. If not this weekend, then hopefully I’ll play in a game coming up.”
Darrell Lovell covers the Houston Dynamo for MLSsoccer.com.
