The popular injury in the opening minutes of this 2008 MLS season appears to be franchise players getting shut down for meniscus tears. Both New England's Taylor Twellman and LA's Carlos Ruiz are out for 4 to 6 weeks according to Soccer by Ives' resident footy doctor, himself. The injury didn't seem to bother the Revolution in their 3-0 rout of the defending champion Dynamo on Saturday, but they also lost midfielder Steve Ralston for some time, another big hit to the roster. Next thing we need is Matt Reis to go down with some kind of skull fracture and New England can dig themselves a pretty impressive hole in the standings.
Over in Los Angeles, the loss of Ruiz in the face of their 4-0 drubbing at Colorado leaves them, for back of a better term, completely [expletive deleted]. A good 20% of the payroll is now on the shelf, and a team that is basically built around its high profile offense just lost a third of its three-headed DP monster. The pressure to pick up the slack falls back on megastar Becks and his sidekick Landon, Boy Wonder. GM Alexi Lalas can't be sleeping well these days as his risky gamble has already taken a turn for the worse.
