COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (May 15, 2018) – The Colorado Rapids have a big test coming up this weekend as the club head to Yankees Stadium to take on New York City FC, one of the best teams in MLS. They have a lot of players who haven’t been available the last few games with injuries.
Colorado Rapids training and injury updates: Dominique Badji questionable
Marlon Hairston and Kortne Ford are still rehabbing from surgeries they had over a month ago. Both have been in training, but haven’t been full team training participants. Johan Blomberg has been held out the last few weeks with a leg injury suffered at FC Dallas. Nana Boateng played over the weekend after being under concussion protocol the last few weeks.
Lastly, Dominique Badji was a last-minute scratch from Saturday’s loss due to a hamstring injury in warmups.
Wait and see:
Dominique Badji and Shkelzen Gashi have both been in training. Gashi has mostly been working with the second team in drills and scrimmages.
“Badji, we’ll have to see how he is after training [todayy]. It’s not a bad one at all, but he felt it last week and there’s a little bit of precaution there as well. We can’t afford to lose him for a long period of time so we’re making sure we do that one right,” Coach Anthony Hudson said Tuesday after training.
It’s good to hear that Badji’s knock isn’t a serious one. Still, the Rapids have been cautious with almost every other injury they’ve had this season. Expect him and Gashi to be late-week decisions for Saturday. I’d lost both of them as questionable for Saturday as of now.
Hopefully next week:
Marlon Hairston and Kortne Ford have both been making progress and have been in training. Both have started doing drills with soccer balls, but mostly on their own.
“Both Marlon and Kortne are progressing. They’re returning to training, doing more football stuff [rather than just athletic/cardio drills],” said Hudson.
The rehabs for both of them have been longer than expected. Hairston was supposed to only miss a couple of weeks. This is the seventh week of his recovery. Meanwhile, Ford was reportedly going to be out 8-10 weeks. This is the tenth week of his recovery.
The coaching staff believes that both will be back in team training early next week. They are most likely out for this weekend. Blomberg is also dealing with a leg injury, but there’s been a snag in his recovery.
“Over the weekend, [Johan Blomberg’s] been hit by a bug. He’s better and hopefully the next couple of days he’ll be back in his rehab. I hope by next week he’s back in training,” adding “we need to see who’s available and that will dictate how we’re going to play on Saturday.”
Blomberg is out for this weekend. Hopefully, for the Rapids, all three of these guys are back in training on Monday.
Boateng back in action:
Nana Boateng started Saturday against New York Red Bulls and played 72 minutes. As expected and confirmed, Boateng was cleared from the MLS concussion protocol last week.
“He’s all good. They’re quite strict with the process to get them back. There’s no way he would have played if he didn’t pass one of those stages. They’re quite efficient with [the MLS concussion protocol],” Hudson told Last Word on Soccer.
