The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Workhorse Almiron out at least 3 weeks
Hamstring injury raises questions of whether players get enough rest.
After Miguel Almiron sustained a hamstring injury in the first half of Sunday’s 2-0 victory against Montreal that will sideline him for at least three weeks, there has been some questioning of Atlanta United manager Gerardo Martino’s tendency to leave his standout players in the lineup deep into games, even those whose results are done and dusted.
Almiron has nine goals and a team-high 13 assists. After the injury was announced Monday in terse news release, no team officials were available for comment.
One MLS national writer has noted that Atlanta’s top nine players have logged more than 80 percent of the team’s minutes since
August with Toronto being the next-highest in MLS at 74 percent.
Almiron, Josef Martinez, Hector Villalba and Yamil Asad all played full games in the 7-0 blowout of New England. That’s one example of Martino leaving the players in deep into games. Also, Payson Schwin noted on mlssoccer.com that “starting with a game against D.C. United on June 21, (Almiron has) only been substituted twice: once in the 89th minute in Atlanta’s 3-0 defeat of FC Dallas on Sept. 10, and again in the 79th minute in a 4-0 win over the LA Galaxy last Wednesday.”
Almiron has played the third-most league minutes (2,365) of any Atlanta United player this season. Just Michael Parkhurst and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez have played more, but the minutes logged at centerback are different than what Almiron is asked to do as an attacking midfielder.
Almiron, like Asad (2,364 minutes) and Villalba (2,329), is tireless, consistently running on offense and defense.
Almiron runs so much because it’s what the position demands, but also because he said he wants to play. He said after the win against New England that he didn’t get to play as much as he would like at his former club, Lanus, in Argentina. Therefore, he wasn’t worried about playing too much and possibly wearing himself out before the playoffs.
“I just have to take care of myself personally and try to do everything I can to recover along with my teammates,” he said.
Asked if the wear and tear of playing in so many games may have contributed to Almiron’s injury, Martino on Sunday said: “It’s tough to say, but maybe. (Almiron’s) coming off playing a lot of games with us and also playing two games with Paraguay. So, he’s played a lot of games. But it’s also true that as a team we’ve been accustomed to playing one game and then a game midweek, but we’ve had a tough stretch of games, so it’s possible that could be another explanation.”
While it’s impossible to predict injuries, even with all the technology teams used to monitor players during training and games, Martino has another defense for continuing to start and use his young players, even if it doesn’t explain keeping them in games for so long. It’s a reason Martino has used several times when asked him about potential lineup combinations: Securing a playoff spot is the team’s first priority. He said as much again Sunday, indirectly pointing to the 1 percent possibility that the team won’t make the playoffs.
Atlanta United is in third place in the East with 49 points and five regular-season games remaining. With a win against Philadelphia on Wednesday, Atlanta United will become the first expansion team since Seattle in 2009 to make the postseason.