Top Stories

MLS West Notes: Saborio seeks treatment in Costa Rica, a tank interrupts Quakes practice, and more

AlvaroSaborioRSL3 (DeseretNews)

BY MIKE DONOVAN

Looking to solve his injury problems, Alvaro Saborio has headed home.

For the second time this season, Saborio has traveled to his native Costa Rica to get treatment for an injury. The striker, who has only played in 13 league matches in 2013, is getting treated for a calf strain that has limited him to just one game in the last month.

“We’re looking into it because it’s something ideally we would not like to have him fly to Costa Rica to take care of,” Kreis told the Salt Lake Tribune. “Once we learn the methods they’re using down there, we believe it’s something we can implement here.”

Saborio last played for Real Salt Lake in a 4-2 win over the Portland Timbers on Aug. 30.

Here are more of this week’s notes from around the Western Conference:

CHIVAS USA

Defender Marco Delgado might be out for the rest of the season. Delgado underwent knee surgery last week to repair meniscus a tear in his left knee and the 18 year-old has an expected recovery of four-to-six weeks, which seems likely to force him to miss the remainder of the campaign. Delgado has seen action in 16 matches this season.

COLORADO RAPIDS

The Rapids announced Wednesday that a sidewalk sale and auction prior to the club’s most recent match had raised $10,000 for the Myocarditis Foundation in honor of Elysa Rojas, who was the daughter of the club’s Head Athletic Trainer, Jaime Rojas. Elysa passed away suddenly in January as a result of viral myocarditis.

Hosted by the Rapids Sidekicks, which consists of the significant others of Rapids players and team staff, held the event to raise funds and awareness for the Myocarditis Foundation.

“The Rojas family has been very close to our hearts for a long time, and we were thrilled to kick start their vision of carrying on Elysa’s legacy with such a successful event,” Kersten Mullan, wife of midfielder Brian Mullan, told the club’s website.

FC DALLAS

FC Dallas youth academy coach Luchi Gonzalez is in France this week taking part in a youth development course led by the French Football Federation. Gonzalez is in the midst of a 16-month course that stems from an agreement between MLS and the FFF.

“You can know the game like a book, but if you don’t know how to stand on the field and adjust space or put in a player in a specific spot or a specific adjustment [it’s useless],” Gonzalez told the club’s website. “To them it’s an art form, it’s not about what you can put on a paper or writing an essay, it’s how well can you manage a group.”

LOS ANGELES GALAXY

It had been 364 days since he had scored a MLS goal, but Juninho’s tally in LA’s 1-1 draw with conference-leading Seattle on Saturday came at just the right time for the Galaxy. The defending MLS Cup champion is in the thick of the MLS Western Conference playoff race and needed the Brazilian to replicate his training ground form.

“He had been working on it so much at practice, and we see him hit them all the time at practice,” Todd Dunivant told the club’s website. “It was only a matter of time before he put one in, and he put in a beauty.”

PORTLAND TIMBERS

On Wednesday, the Portland City Council approved an amendment to a contract that will give the Portland Timbers more practice fields for its youth and development teams, in addition to the Portland Thorns. The club will also build a new building adjacent to the fields in Delta Park, which is located in the northern part of the city.

The new facility and fields, which will include public restrooms and locker room facilities, join Jeld-Wen Field and the Timbers practice facility in the suburb of Beaverton as training sites for the club.

SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES

The Earthquakes received an unexpected visitor at their training on Tuesday when a Bradley Fighting Vehicle crashed into a fence that surrounded the area San Jose was practicing in.

San Jose’s training facility is next door to a Bradley Vehicle test track used by BAE Systems. The tank was stuck for approximately ten minutes and damaged the wall that separates the two facilities.

SEATTLE SOUNDERS

With his assist in Saturday’s draw with the LA Galaxy, Mauro Rosales tied Fredy Montero’s Sounders MLS club record with 34 career assists. The Sounders captain and Designated Player has the third-highest assist rate of any MLS player with 20 or more career assists, behind Carlos Valderrama and Marco Etcheverry.

“I’m very proud to be part of the history and very proud to be part of this team,” Rosales told the Seattle Times. “It’s a huge part of me just in three years getting the record.”

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

Kenny Miller, who scored Saturday for the first time in his last six starts, might miss Vancouver’s upcoming match with Real Salt Lake due to a groin injury. The Scottish striker was subbed out of Saturday’s match after re-aggravating the injury he originally suffered at the beginning of August. With five matches remaining, the club is four points out of the final playoff spot.

 

Comments

  1. It is weird for Sabo to go all the way to CR but maybe their having advanced campbelling training (so cameras don’t see it) that he can’t miss out on.

    All kidding aside it could be something fishy or just a very unusual request. Jumping to conclusions is all too easy but it’s best to wait and find out what happens.

    Having said that I’m going to jump to a conclusion. Based on the evidence (the interview in England, his history with Claudio Reyna, the money NYCFC have and his wanting to one day coach the US because he still feels he never was given a real chance with the NT during his playing days) Jason Kriess is probably eyeing the NYCFC job more closely now. This Sabo thing and his absence is hard when he’s a DP.

    Kriess has always talked about having a team that has two or three players the caliber of Javier Morales or Saborio should there be injuries. NYCFC will be able to make something like that happen like Seattle has this season.

    Reply
  2. No one knows whats going on with Saborio or if he is using any substances but I’m sure everyone can agree that going all the way to Costa Rica to get treatment for a calf strain is out of the ordinary, something doesn’t sound right.

    Reply
  3. I’m sorry, but this has doping written ALL over it. Kreis doesn’t even know what they’re doing to him and he’s authorizing flights to Costa Rica to leave the team?

    Reply
      • “We’re looking into it because it’s something ideally we would not like to have him fly to Costa Rica to take care of,” Kreis told the Salt Lake Tribune. “Once we learn the methods they’re using down there, we believe it’s something we can implement here.”

        Does that not strike you as wildly absurd? A player is foregoing top of the line medical treatment in a professional sports league to travel thousands of miles to a country with little medical oversight and he expects to have it fix all his problems.

        Furthermore, his own coach publicly admits he has no idea what they are doing down there. That’s PR 101. Kreis is setting himself up for plausible deniability. I promise you he had that discussion with team counsel and doctors about doping.

      • And I mean that literally–Kreis is making it clear publicly that he doesn’t know why Saborio is flying off to other countries for medical treatment.

        To further clarify I think Kreis and RSL do not condone, but believe he might be doping down there and are making sure they take minimal blowback if he gets caught.

      • I’m not.

        He has professional sports team physicians working on him–world class doctors. And the United States is still home to the best medical system in the world (if you can afford it–and he can).

        He has a calf strain. Not a rare disorder. There isn’t some secret methodology for treating a muscle strain that only Costa Ricans know.

        He’s doping.

      • It’s curious that you know not only which doctors he’s been seeing in the US, and the ones he has yet seen in Costa Rica. Otherwise, how on earth could you make this statement? Other than assuming the docs in Costa Rica are inferior for some unknown reason.

      • How does doping help heal a calf injury?? I never heard that doping heals or preventing muscles injuries. It’s my understanding that doping is used to increase you cardiovascular endurance. If I’m wrong, by all means, correct and educate me.

      • Steroid use is commonly referred to in sports media as being thought to help reduce recovery time.

        I have not read anything scientific to substantiate that, but it seems to be the prevailing public opinion.

Leave a Comment