Veteran Toronto midfielder has nerve problem in back
If Toronto FC’s problem in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League was execution, as coach Greg Vanney suggested post-game last week, the answer might be in-house.
But whether creative midfielder Victor Vazquez (who hasn’t played since putting up 26 minutes in the quarter-finals against Tigres) will be available for Wednesday’s decisive second leg against Chivas de Guadalajara remains unclear.
“He progresses with, I want to say every day but it’s probably every week he’s progressing and getting better. He’s doing more things, he’s more mobile than he has been,” Vanney said last Thursday, a day before the Reds — including Vazquez — travelled to Guadalajara, where they will try to reverse a 2-1 deficit and win the tournament.
As of Monday, the club confirmed his status for Wednesday’s game is still up in the air.
Vazquez is suffering from a nerve issue in his back that sends uncomfortable sensations down his legs and into his foot, which can lead to numbness. There’s also some discomfort in his hips, which made the issue difficult to pinpoint early on. It wasn’t until the club was able to do various MRIs and see some specialists that they were able to decipher where the nerve issue was coming from, Vanney said.
The midfielder, who played every minute of Toronto’s round of 16 series against the Colorado Rapids, was first sidelined by the injury in TFC’s season opener against Columbus, when he was substituted after 53 minutes. His 26 minutes against Tigres came over two legs, and he didn’t make the bench for either leg of the semifinal against Club America or the first leg against Chivas.
Rest is imperative to Vazquez’s recovery, to let the nerve calm down. Vanney said the team was told that would take six to eight weeks a little more than six weeks ago, so they believe he’s getting close and hoped he could make enough progress in the final week leading up to the game to play some part midweek.
“He’s been frustrated,” Vanney said. “Extremely frustrated. He’s happier now because he knows he’s getting closer and he’s able to do more things but for sure as the team has been going through these big matches and he’s been unable to play a role, he’s been extremely frustrated.”
What the team misses without Vazquez, Vanney said, is some of the quality of the final pass, cleverness about manipulating numbers and movement in areas of the field that make it very difficult for oppositions to deal with him.
“Obviously Seba (Giovinco), Jozy (Altidore) and Vic have a great relationship in terms of whether it’s combining and the runs or working off of each other,” he said.
“It’s just proven to be successful in terms of his ability to get assists, goals, things like that. Set pieces, he gives us different options especially in the service of different set pieces. He’s smart and other teams know that they have to keep an eye on him so sometimes defensively he doesn’t necessarily have to do quite as much defensive work because he can hurt teams so much on the other side that they actually have to defend him. There’s little things like that.”
That’s not to take away from the players who have stepped up in Vazquez’s absence, namely Marky Delgado and Jonathan Osorio. Both put in an incredible amount of work, which has been particularly helpful at BMO Field, where the pitch conditions have been less than ideal early in the season.
“Just some good old fashioned running and young legs and working through the mud-ish feel hasn’t been the worst thing for us by any stretch,” Vanney said.
On the attacking end, Osorio has come up with a goal in each round of the tournament. His four goals put him atop the list of contenders for for the Champions League’s Golden Boot award.
It’s not something Vanney would have predicted, but he’ll take it.
“I find it a little bit ironic because somebody asked me about him coming into the season and I said, ‘He doesn’t need to worry about scoring goals for us, he can play his game and keep possession and move the ball and do all those things.’ And then he starts scoring goals like that’s his job, so perfect. Shows you how much I know.”
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