The wear and tear of the path to the Concacaf Champions League final is taking its toll on Toronto FC.
Missing several key players, the Reds put those healthy and fresh enough to feature in Saturday’s meeting with the Colorado Rapids on a plane from Mexico City to Denver after Tuesday’s clash with Club América.
Those ruled out of the Rapids fixture returned to Toronto.
They include Gregory van der Wiel and Jozy Altidore, who lengthened the injury list when they were forced off during the 1-1 draw at Estadio Azteca.
According to Toronto coach Greg Vanney, Van der Wiel has been managing some tendon irritation — in his Achilles, per the Toronto Sun.
“With Greg, it’s a little bit of a management thing,” Vanney said during a conference call with media Thursday afternoon. “I’ll have more indication [later], but we’ve tried to manage him a little bit over the course of the beginning of the season. It’s tendonitis-type stuff.”
“If we can get what’s going on to calm down, he should be fine,” he added in reference to Tuesday’s first leg of the Champions League final against Chivas Guadalajara.
Vanney also expects Altidore to play next week after rolling his ankle while warming up against América.
“I think they’re going to take a look at him closer today,” Vanney explained. “All indications from him are that he’ll be fine and ready to go.”
Victor Vázquez, Chris Mavinga and Justin Morrow — three of Toronto’s highest earners outside of their designated players — missed the América tie entirely.
Of the trio, Vázquez’s status is in the most doubt ahead of the first leg against Chivas.
“Victor, it’s really a precarious thing,” Vanney admitted. “It’s a nerve issue in his back. All indications from us and from the specialists that we talked to were that it’s a time issue, it’s not a matter of anything more that anyone can really do.
“We’re taking steps slowly but surely, and continuing to try to make progress where we can with him, but it needs a little time to settle down and there’s like a typical window of time and we’re right on the edge of it. So we’re not quite sure where Victor will be coming into Tuesday. It’s precarious because it’s a nerve thing.”
With regards to Mavinga (sports hernia) and Morrow (calf), Vanney sounded more hopeful.
“Chris is making progress,” he said. “It was a call in the last two games that once we did a follow-up MRI, he wasn’t as far along as we had wanted him to be to have him play in Mexico. But he’s making progress.
“Getting the result there gives us another week, so we’re optimistic. I keep kind of saying that, I know, but we’re optimistic and with every week that passes we’re definitely getting closer. He’ll get a follow-up look this week while we’re here [in Denver] — he’ll be back there [in Toronto] getting a follow-up scan and if things are progressing as we hope and they should, then hopefully he’ll be available for Tuesday.”
Vanney added that Morrow is “doing well,” and was close to playing in the last match but still had a bit of tenderness in his calf.
“He had trained a couple of days and just had some tenderness still that we couldn’t afford to put him out there and have something else go wrong,” Vanney said. “He’s close, real close, as are all of the guys. We’re just hoping they can get down the final stretch here and be ready for selection on Tuesday.”
Vanney put the number of niggling injuries his players have suffered down to the variety of fields they have played on through a busy start to the new campaign across MLS and the Champions League.
“It’s been a difficult start to the season on guys physically,” he noted. “Especially these little things, because we’ve played off multiple different surfaces between hard surfaces, turf surfaces and soft surfaces like BMO [Field] right now.
“The bodies are taking a little bit of bump and grind and some of this stuff.”
Young players such as Jay Chapman, Jordan Hamilton and Liam Fraser could be in line for their first starts of the season against the Rapids, with healthy but tired TFC stars such as Sebastian Giovinco also expected to be rested.