Bunbury injury could have been worse

Sporting Kansas City forward Teal Bunbury will be sidelined for 2-4 weeks with a dislocated elbow suffered in a challenge in Tuesday’s preseason game againstHouston. But it wasn’t a broken elbow, and he won’t be out as long as 4-5 months as first feared.

“He suffered a pretty significant injury,” said assistant coach Kerry Zavagnin. “The way he went down and was holding it, it was noticeable that it was either broken or dislocated. He was on the ground for 20-25 minutesbefore the emergency team took him away in an ambulance.”

The 20-year-old Bunbury scored for the USA in its only game of the year against Chile in January and was expected tochallenge for a starting job up front.

“The fact it’s his upper body – not an ACL or lower body injury — makes it something can just move on from,” Zavagnin said.“We’re a little disappointed it happened in the preseason, but we just move on. We’ve drafted a pretty talented player in C.J. [Sapong], and[Birahim] Diop has proven he can score. It’s premature to say who will replace him, but it is comforting to know we have people that can come in and fillin in a positive way.”