CARSON, Calif. -- Bradford Jamieson is back in training, if not fully, nearly two weeks after a scary spill at the FIFA U-20 World Cup left him with a concussion. He's hoping to get the all-clear soon.
The 18-year-old attacker, who made a nifty impression during the LA Galaxy's early-season injury crisis, says he's been feeling pretty good the past few days after spending a week and a half in something of a fog.
“You start to feel a lot more like yourself [as time passes]. You get a lot more attentive to things,” Jamieson said this week. “It's still moving along slowly, but it's something I have to deal with, and sooner or later I'll be back at the same speed of thought.
“That's something that has to come up to speed, is really the speed of thought. I think my body is a lot less reactive to my mind than I would like it to be, and that can get pretty frustrating.”
Jamieson was hurt in the third minute of the United States' 1-0 Round-of-16 victory over Colombia on July 10 in Wellington, New Zealand, landing awkwardly after he was upended in a battle for the ball. He received on-field treatment for nearly 10 minutes and was taken to a hospital while the game proceeded.
“A lot of people thought it [could be] a number of things, from my collarbone to my spine, and there was a lot of pain in my neck, and the concussion was pretty much it,” Jamieson said. “I felt like I lost consciousness, but a lot of people told me otherwise. I don't really remember it.
“I was a lot more scared the second it happened, because I couldn't feel my right leg. So it was kind of like, 'Oh, man, I don't know if this is a spinal thing or something like that.' But after awhile, I started feeling again, my body started coming out of shock, so I started to calm down. My mom was there, too, and she was frantic. I was keeping myself calm more for her than for me.”
It was the third concussion Jamieson has sustained in the last year and a half. He landed on his head when upended while leaping for a ball in a Galaxy II game last year, then suffered a second concussion in training with the Galaxy, but he can't “remember what happened.”
The injury forced him to miss the quarterfinal against Serbia, which the US lost on penalties following a 0-0 draw Jamieson, who started three games for the U-20s and scored the first goal in a 4-0 Group A romp over New Zealand, says the tournament, regardless of how it ended for him, “was a great experience.”
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“The way I look at it is it won't be my last World Cup,” he said. “[Getting hurt] definitely gives you some drive. I know everyday I'm so thirsty to play a game like that, because World Cup games aren't like other games. There's no other way to put it. There's just nothing like representing your country in a World Cup.”
Jamieson returned to Galaxy training Monday and is doing a lot of running and participating in noncontact drills. He says he's “basically toward the end of “MLS's concussion protocol, and he'd hoped to be cleared for Wednesday's match vs. Portland. That didn't happen, and so he'll continue to work with the club's medical staff toward full involvement.
Galaxy coach Bruce Arena said Jamieson was “moving forward” and although he hoped to see the teenager at “full speed this week,” Arena says these circumstances call for patience.
“I think coaches should automatically be left out of the conversation [on bringing players back from concussions],” Arena said. “That's up to our medical staff. ... You concern yourself with the athlete's health and leave it at that and trust the medical team and the protocol that's been established.”
Scott French covers the LA Galaxy for MLSsoccer.com.
