CARSON, Calif. -- The LA Galaxy’s injury problems at outside back have been compounded, just as they seemed to be progressing.
Todd Dunivant is out again, probably for six weeks, after tearing the muscle in his left groin during Friday’s 6-0 rout of Colorado, but Robbie Rogers is again ready to go and James Riley is back in the mix after nearly 5½ months on the sideline.
Dunivant, who had just returned from an abdominal tear that kept him away for four months, was hurt in the 20th minute against the Rapids after colliding with Nick LaBrocca.
“It was kind of a freak play,” Dunivant said Sunday. “In the collision, I think my legs just kind of got tangled. I think he stepped on one foot and the other [foot] went through, and it sort of created a wishbone effect, and all the stress was put on my groin, and it just snapped.”
Dunivant tried to play on, then went down again in the 25th minute and had to be stretchered off.
“As an athlete, you’re hoping you can push through it, and maybe it’s not hurt as bad as you think it is,” he said, “and it was pretty clear right away that I was done.”
Rogers, however, wasn’t available to step in – he skipped the Rapids game after tweaking his hamstring in last weekend’s win over Chivas USA. A.J. DeLaGarza was also away, and is likely to miss Wednesday’s game in Montreal (7:30 pm ET, MLS Live in US, TSN/RDS in Canada), after the death of his infant son.
Riley, who was in the 18-man game roster for the first time he tore his left meniscus on March 23, wasn’t ready for so many minutes. So Dunivant was replaced by midfielder Stefan Ishizaki.
“Bruce was thinking maybe 15-20, [and] I think I could have pushed it – obviously, the adrenaline’s going – but they wanted me to build a foundation,” Riley said. “I was ready to go in if I needed to be. To push the minutes when Todd went down, that probably would have been tough, but I was ready to play.”
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Riley returned to full training two weeks ago, and he spent the previous two weeks at home in Colorado Springs, to “do some altitude training and kind of just get away mentally and physically [because I] thought maybe I was rushing back a bit.”
He said he built a good fitness base and came back ready to contribute.
“Our injuries have really been in the back, and we’re just hanging on with bodies right now,” coach Bruce Arena noted after Friday’s victory. “We’ve gotten James ready, [but] it’s still a little early for him. We wish we would have been able to get him some Galaxy II games [in USL PRO], but he’s past the deadline of being on the roster, so we’re just going to have to work him in through training and, hopefully, some game time.”
Rogers missed two games last month with a quadriceps injury, saw a half-hour’s action in the win over D.C. United nearly two weeks ago, then went 90 against Chivas.
“It’s just that part of the season where you don’t want to risk anything,” he said. “I’ll travel with the team to Montreal and, hopefully, be on the bench, and also be ready [to start in Sunday’s] San Jose game. I just want to be careful, because I’ve had a little bit of hamstring problems in the past.”
Dunivant, naturally, is frustrated.
“You work hard to come back and feel fit again, feeling strong, looking forward to the push [down the stretch], and then this happens,” he said. “Sometimes things are out of your control and you can’t do anything about it, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.”
