Maybe we shouldn’t have hired Dr. Nick Riviera

By: Robert | August 9th, 2007

Every team has its injuries to deal with so I’m not going to sit here and cry “woe is me” or anything like that but this string of bad luck has gotten so ridiculous that GM Mitch Hitchcock actually called a couple nights ago to ask if I was in shape enough to give the team 10-15 minutes a night. Of course I’m not, but the fact that he’s actually on the phone (he’s not actually calling me people, it’s a joke) means that something really bad is going on.

Carlos Ruiz (foot), Kenny Cooper (leg), Roberto Mina (knee), Juan Toja (ankle), Clarence Goodson (knee), Alex Yi (hamstring), Dario Sala (knee), Ricardihno (quad), Shaka Hislop (back), Arturo Alvarez (shoulder) are all injured in one form or another and while you couldn’t field a starting eleven from this group of guys there are a lot of goals scored and shots saved sitting on trainers table. I wrote earlier about the need for depth on any team thinking about lifting a trophy, or two, at the end of the season. And even though its not true I’m going claim they listened because FC Dallas’ form this year has shown their quality from player 1 to player 18 on the roster – if we had anything less we’d be the LA Galaxy (someone apologize to Laurie for me.)

While Roberto Mina is officially done for the season and with the recent emergence of Ray Burse Jr. in goal I think its fair to say that we’ve probably seen the end of Shaka Hislop this year as well, that still leaves a lot of questions to be asked once everyone returns to the team completely healed. Only 14 guys can play each game (eleven starters and three subs in case you got confused) so how is Steve Murrow going to handle the sudden plethora of healthy talent at his disposal? I don’t know just yet and I’m not sure even he does either because the guys that have filled in during their absences have done very well, possibly to the point of changing the depth chart. Fortunately for Steve he’s got a few weeks left to figure out what to do in Dallas, where the FC stands for “formidable challenge.”

HOOPS PRIDE!

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