Healed Harris eager to rejoin Whitecaps
After missing most of last season, striker determined to improve his game in upcoming MLS season
After two knee operations last year, Atiba Harris had every reason to be concerned.
Was this it — the career- ending injury that would force him to hang up the cleats for good? How would he support his wife and baby daughter?
Those were the questions the 27- year- old Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder/ forward asked himself after suffering a right knee injury that required meniscal repair surgery in April and a meniscectomy in August.
“This was my first major injury and at first, I didn’t know how to deal with it,” Harris said in a telephone interview from the Whitecaps training camp in Florida. “As an athlete, you never know how long you’re going to play. But I prayed a lot and had a lot of positive support from family and friends and fans, which kept me focused.”
Among the well- wishers was Harris’s cousin – Manchester City and England defender Micah Richards – who often texted him to check on his progress.
Harris had two goals and three assists in five games for Vancouver before the knee injury last year and almost recovered in time to play near the end of the season. But he and the club erred on the side of caution.
“I might have been able to get a few minutes in a few games but it didn’t make sense to take a risk and possibly come into [ this year’s] camp injured again,” he said.
Harris spent much of the off- season at his home in Los Angeles with his wife, Rachael, and 15- month- old daughter, Laila. He worked out regularly at the Athletes’ Performance training facility at the Home Depot Center to strengthen the muscles around his knee.
“My right side actually feels stronger than my left side now so I’m feeling pretty good about things,” said the six- foot- three, 185- pound Saint Kitts and Nevis international.
Harris enters his eighth MLS season this year after previous stints with Real Salt Lake, Chivas USA and FC Dallas and, statistically, might have had the best season of his career in Vancouver last season if it hadn’t been cut short by injury.
He doesn’t plan to just pick up where he left off last season.
“I need to do more than that,” Harris said. “I need to improve on certain things to help the team out.”
He said his to- do list of playing improvements includes better finishing of his scoring chances, creating more chances for his teammates and getting into better positions on the field.
Harris played as a striker last season but might play a wider position this year under new head coach Martin Rennie, who has several new attacking players to work with – including Sebastien Le Toux, Darren Mattocks and Lee Nguyen.
“I like playing centrally but I’ve played wide before so it doesn’t really matter,” Harris said. “The most important thing is getting on the field and helping the team.”
Rennie said Harris is versatile enough to play in a few different spots.
“The thing I like about Atiba is that as the game goes on, he can drift from the right side into the middle and then get back out there,” he said. “With guys like Le Toux on the team, they know that if Atiba gets inside, they have to cover the right.
“That gives us versatility that maybe we didn’t have before.”
Rennie said Harris is a tough player to defend.
“His work ethic and ability to cover ground and get the ball back really makes him a threat,” he said.
Harris expects major improvement in the Whitecaps this year and while he has personal goals he won’t reveal, his goals for the team are clear – win the Amway Canadian Championship and make the MLS playoffs.
“Once you get to the playoffs in MLS, anything can happen,” he said.
SIDE KICKS: Physiotherapist Rick Celebrini, hired as a Whitecaps consultant last year, has become the club’s head of sports medicine and science. The former Caps defender – a cofounder of the Multisport Centre of Excellence – played a major role in the recent rehabilitation of players such as John Thorrington and Jay Demerit.
Vancouver native and St. Johnstone striker Marcus Haber has been called up to play for the Canadian national men’s team in a Feb. 29 friendly against Armenia. It will be the 23- year- old former Dunbar youth player’s third senior cap.