Seattle Sounders’ Will Bruin has partially torn plantar fascia

Will Bruin has a partially torn plantar fascia. The torn connective tissue, which links the heel bone and the individual bones in the toes, may limit Bruin’s ability to contribute to the squad for several weeks, according to Seattle Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer.

For Schmetzer, whose squad has been plagued with injuries in the first months of the MLS season, the news came as another blow.

“You guys know by now that I kind of use ‘tough kid’ as a euphemism for there to be a little humor in our media scrums,” Schmetzer said Thursday at training. “But Will actually is a really tough kid because he’s got a partial tear in his plantar fascia and it’s another considerable injury. We’re not talking about days. We’re talking about weeks. That was a massive blow to the squad, but he is determined to come back sooner than the doctors predict because he is a tough kid and he wants to help the team.”

Bruin scored his team-best third goal of the season against Toronto, but later told Schmetzer that he felt something wrong with his foot during that match. Schmetzer declined to go into further detail about when precisely the injury occurred.

After losing striker Jordan Morris for the season with a torn ACL in February, injuries piled up for Seattle. Leg muscle pulls and strains hampered Osvaldo Alonso (quad), Roman Torres (hamstring), Kim Kee-hee (calf), while a knee arthroscopy has midfielder Victor Rodriguez on the bench for the immediate future and a sprained ankle has limited Harry Shipp to two appearances.

Schmetzer also revealed three internationals — Gustav Svensson (Sweden), Nicolas Lodeiro (Uruguay) and Torres (Panama) — all left the country to join their respective national teams ahead of the World Cup, which begins in Russia next month.

In total, Seattle is currently without players who combined to score 26 of their 52 goals in 2017.

Short on options, Schmetzer has chosen to embrace the reality of the small pool of available players left to him between injuries and international callups.

“That’s the message I gave them today,” Schmetzer said. “‘This is it. This is who we are for the next little bit, so let’s get out and get after it.’ They’re all cognizant of it. They all know it. They all know the challenges we face, they see our record in the standings.”