Feilhaber injury not as bad as initially feared

In the 59th minute of Sporting Kansas City’s game at the LA Galaxy, Nathan Smith attempted a tackle on midfielder Benny Feilhaber. Smith launched himself at Feilhaber and went over the top of the ball. Smith’s leg went directly into the side of Feilhaber’s ankle and the initial worry was that the ankle was broken.

Fortunately that is not the case. The medical staff ran tests on Feilhaber and it appears it is just a sprain.

“Everything (the tests) is negative and now it’s just getting on the mend of the ankle sprain,” Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes explained at training Tuesday. “I can’t tell you a timeline. He’s working hard and the guys in the training room are putting him through it. Because as I said, with having lost three guys to the national team and now losing him, being a fourth and all four of them starters, that makes an impact to the team. Hopefully it is something that will be quicker rather than longer.”

“You just never know,” Vermes continued. “You can chip a bone or a lot of other things that can happen so you never know. The good news is it all came out negative, the bad news is it is still a reckless tackle that impacted a player and it will impact his play for some considerable time.”

Sporting have the U.S Open Cup match in Houston on Wednesday, then host Portland Saturday and Philadelphia the following Thursday but will then have a couple weeks off before they play again on the 22nd at Salt Lake.

SKC will already be missing Matt Besler, Graham Zusi and Dom Dwyer for those games at least and only time will tell how long Feilhaber will be unavailable as well.