Sporting Kansas City’s Tim Melia out 2-4 weeks

The Kansas City Star’s Sam McDowell reported on Monday morning that Tim Melia could miss 2-4 weeks with a hamstring injury.

Sporting Kansas City later confirmed that he was out 2-4 weeks with a hamstring strain.

Melia picked up his hamstring injury in the 59th minute of Sporting KC’s match with Minnesota United on Saturday and had to be subbed out. Second string keeper Andrew Dysktra subbed on for the final 31 minutes of the match.

Sporting KC have three regular season matches left in the 2017 season with their season finale coming on Oct. 22, meaning Melia could miss the rest of the regular season. Sporting are in good position playoff-wise as they sit second in the Western Conference with a game in hand against conference-leading Vancouver, but Sporting have not yet clinched a playoff spot.

For the past three seasons, Sporting have faltered late and ended up playing on the road in a knockout playoff match. To break that streak, Sporting will have to play well in these final three matches, which makes the choice of the starting keeper very important.

On one hand, there’s Dysktra, who has been the backup for Melia this season. Dykstra has not been a consistent starter so there’s a limited sample size on how good he is.

On the other hand is Adrián Zendejas, who has been the starter for most of the Swope Park Rangers matches this year and has been looked at as the keeper of the future. Zendejas has given up 22 goals in 22 matches this season with 8 clean sheets and a 1.00 goals against average rating. He’s only 22 years old but could still be given the starting job.

The decision will have to be made quickly as Sporting KC has a match at Houston on Wednesday, where they will be without Graham Zusi, Matt Besler, and Benny Feilhaber in addition to Melia.