Real Salt Lake’s Javier Morales, whose ankle was shattered by a foul from Chivas USA’s Marcos Mondaini last Saturday, has a chance of returning to play thisseason, reports Michael C. Lewis.
On Monday, RSL team doctor Andrew Cooper performed a two-hour surgery on Morales to repair the twobroken bones, and dislocated ankle and torn ligaments. Cooper said the star midfielder has a history of recovering quickly from injury.
“We’d love to see Javi back out there,and we’re going to give him the best chance at that,” said Cooper, adding that Morales won’t be able to do much for the next six weeks, before he’s able to start bearingweight again and strengthening his ankle. After about three months, he will begin working on “functional return” with light jogging and other motor skills.
RSL generalmanager Garth Lagerwey said the successful surgery represented a “positive result” and the timetable for recovery “is such that we might get Javi back this season.That is, if rehab goes to plan, very encouraging. That’s the most important thing to come out of this.”