Team Updates: Leonardo’s out, Donovan’s back and a commenter takes me to task

Leonardo as a brick wall standing up Chicago's attack before his injury.

As we head into Saturday’s match-up against the expansion Portland Timbers, who sure seem to like score at home with seven gols in their two home matches, here are a couple of player updates.

First, as you no doubt saw on Sunday, Leonardo went down hard right at the end of regulation (remember Dominic Oduro playing the ass and trying to drag him upright as if he were faking to kill the game?). He ripped two of his ligaments and will be undergoing surgery and then rehab. Bruce Arena is on record suggesting that he will not be back this season.

Whatever you thought about his play – and I’ve heard plenty of praise to go with plenty of derision (I thought he was much stronger this season than last but is still inferior to Gonzalez by quite a bit) – the Galaxy is now scraping the bottom in terms of centerbacks. Luckily both Sean Franklin and AJ Delagarza have experience there, so the team can probably hold out well enough until Gregg Berhalter is fit to play.

Second, I’m hearing on the Twitosphere that Landon Donovan is back from his knee injury, which is good news as he was sorely missed in the past three games (less so in Chicago as the youngsters held their own and did it in style for much of the match). I suspect that he’s probably not fit to go 90 minutes, so I wouldn’t expect him to start on Saturday night, but I would expect to see him play 30-45 minutes.

Finally, this week the Paolo Cardozo boosters are out in force on the blog in the form of Amir, who is blowing up the comments. Thanks Amir, comment any time! But I think you are watching a different team if you think that Sean Franklin doesn’t add much offense from his right back position. Did you never see his overlaps with Beckham over the last three season? And I’ve had my say on Hejduk’s middling performance on Sunday, so what do other’s think about Amir’s defense of him?

“If anybody has the fitness to recover, it is Frankie Hejduk. People forget how good this guy really is. It helps to have an attacking option from the fullback position. We don’t get much attacking from Franklin, De La Garza, or even Dunivant.”

Have at it in the comments. What do you think the best line-up for Saturday is?

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Category: Player News