MLS Injury News Recap GW 26

There were a ton of injuries this weekend to key players and combined with the call ups for World Cup qualifiers, we figured it made sense to make a post now to cover everything that’s going on so you can decide what moves you’ll need to make this week.

Injuries

• Giovinco-Out 4 weeks. If you look at the schedule, that puts him coming back right at their DGW in 31. Based on TFC’s history of slowly rotating players back into the squad combined with a bye right after that DGW, I’m guessing he’s not back until 33.
• Dempsey-Out indefinitely with an irregular heartbeat. This is a serious condition and we won’t know the extent for a while. We wish the best for Clint.
• Deric-Houston’s keeper may be done for the season with an elbow injury
• Wenger-suffered an injury in training, no update.
• Bingham-back injury. No official timetable, but he left early and it didn’t seem good. Tarbell subbed in for him.
• Drogba-Left early in the second half after being tangled up in a tackle in the first half that apparently caused an injury he couldn’t fight through. No timetable.
• Keane-An injury in training last week and he wasn’t in the 18. Not clear what the injury is.
• Trapp-suffered a concussion, expect an extended absence for Trapp.
• Gerrard-hamstring issue forced him to leave very early this weekend.
• Zardes-Gerrard’s replacement himself had to be subbed after a tackle. No timetable, but he was already taken off the USMNT due to the injury so hard to see him playing much in 27 and 28.
• Van Damme-Left with a left knee issue at 45 minutes.

Discipline

Medranda-straight red card

Espinoza-straight red card but expect this one to be appealed successfully.

Thiam-straight red

Mallace-Straight red

No YC accumulation suspension that I’m aware of at the moment, but MLS doesn’t update discipline for a while.

International Callups

The full list is here. Now, that changes a lot as players suddenly find they have injuries that aw shucks keeps them out of national team duty. I also think there a few rosters that haven’t come out yet. But I’ll list the big ones for MLS Fantasy right now and update the post as more rosters come out.

• Larin
• Bolanos
• Matarrita
• Pappa
• Afful
• Meram
• Keane (only for friendly on 8/31 which is essentially the Keane testimonial. Not expected to affect his availability, although perhaps it will affect his time played)
• Barnes
• Molino
• Lodeiro
• Sacha Kljestan (!)
• Altidore
• Bedoya
• Beckerman
• Bradley
• Nagbe
• Wondolowski
• Morris
• Zusi

The WC qualifiers are the 2nd and 6th. They’ll miss GW 27 but should be back in plenty of time for 28 UNLESS they have the DGW as those matches are on the 7th (think Molino, Beckerman). Obviously, if they play the 2nd and 6th they could be coming off the benches for their matches on the 10th and 11th.