2020 Roster Thread

#Crew96 left back Milton Valenzuela is out for two weeks with a torn meniscus, Caleb Porter says.

— Jacob Myers (@_jcmyers) March 10, 2020

 

Two weeks seems like a very short amount of time to be out. Even if it's 3-4, I'll take it.

 

Porter on Valenzuela: “Good news is these aren’t major injuries.”

Said he was a little surprised to learn Milton wasn’t able to go in the second half because there wasn’t much in the play where he was hurt. #Crew96

— Jacob Myers (@_jcmyers) March 10, 2020

Valenzuela had the injury scoped today. No major surgery.

— Jacob Myers (@_jcmyers) March 10, 2020

 

Get well, Milton.

 

Yes. For Over 40 soccer, we would switch to turf shoes in June and August because the ground was so hard. It's also why I had to stop playing. My knees would be so sore from the hard ground that I could walk up and down stairs the next day.

 

For me, it was the year I turned 50 ("I hit 50--50 hit back"). When you wake up on Saturday still sore from Sunday's game....

 

I, on the other hand, experienced my career ending ACL tear wearing turf shoes on real grass, it just grabbed my foot when I went to pivot. It's wasn't a pop tear, I was hoping it was just meniscus or something, but kinda knew that was wrong. I was 38.

 

Ended at 38 here too. Degenerative Joint Disease; no cartilage left in either knee.

 

M

Mine have deteriorated pretty far since then, too. the arthritis wasn't really worth the wait.

 

My career ended in High School. Not from any injuries mind you, I just sucked.

 

I s*cked too--but still had a lot of fun playing in rec leagues after HS (I never would have made my HS team--we send folks to D-1 schools).

 

Mine ended at 32, also a knee injury. Three ACL reconstructions are enough, I have no interest in going for a 4th.

 

I always told Mrs KG that if I had a major knee injury, I would retire. Fortunately, it never did, though I had a badly jammed knee once (got tripped up rounding a fullback and landed with my knew locked). What got me was sore knees for the week after the game (excepting Monday, usually--I was usually ok the day after).

I probably played against a number of you, though it's been almost 15 years now. Wings SC and CAS Corporate Challenge...

 

Oh! We are trading our stories of physical injuries and limitations? At 23, I had to walk with the assistance of a cane for around a year (and I have flareups every once in a while with little to no warning) - cocktail combination of injury, permanent damage damage, arthritis at such a young age, and previously undiscovered bone cysts. No one ever gave me a precise answer - despite all the costly tests and tests! My PCP told me (so incredibly informative), "some of us are not meant to run so never run again."

So we keep rolling. Or walking. But not too fast.

 

I successfully navigated a college career without injury. Or at least serious injury. Played in an adult league and broke my elbow at 24. It was the first and last game I played in as an adult. I was just playing for fun and quickly discovered that adult league soccer is not for people who want to have fun. It’s serious. Life or death stuff to many who play. So I retired at 24.

 

We always tried to take the attitude "this is the 'we have to go to work on Monday' league". But some people thought it was the World Cup--up to and including slide tackles in a no slide tackle league. But the guys that sometimes caused us the most trouble were young refs for an O-30 league, who sometimes called the game as if it were pointy ball.

The other thing I hated were 20-somethings playing in an O-30 league. Caught them once--as my team had their HS principal and one of their teachers playing for us....

 

Over in Newark, NASL (insert obligatory "Keith Laughlin is the AntiChrist" reference) ran an adult league for a couple of years, and then the guys involved said "Hey, why are we paying these clowns all this money when we could do it all ourselves?"

So they found a field, put some teams together and found a few really naive, stupid people to referee. Me for instance.

And I quickly discovered why you never do an independent game: there is no recourse, no lasting punishment for anything, and no protection whatsoever for the official if they decide to kick shit out of him.

First game, 15 minutes in, I call a foul. Guy gets in my face and starts screaming obscenities and threats and I discovered how lonely it can be out there. Somehow got it under control, a few minutes later there's a serious leg breaking foul in the box and I immediately pulled the red. Guy told me what I could do with it, he wasn't leaving.

So I walked.

Very next game, (a friend of mine worked it, I was long gone) a guy got a card and he walked over to where the referee had his gear, opened his water bottle and spit in it.

Ridiculous.

 

I made it all the way to O-40 playing at Soccer First, played there every year after getting back from college. Never got injured but came real close in my last game, was on a break and got hit from behind and woke up looking at the ceiling. I decided I could get my running in at the park instead of the soccer field.

 

Where I played at one point. I took one of those shots too (really a football style hit)--hit the ground really hard, but was more banged up on the side I got hit on rather than the side I fell on. Teen ref though--who just stared at me. Not great at protecting players....

 

I managed to avoid serious injuries playing sports. I actually tore my ACL working at Blossom Music Center during the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991. Got caught by a barrier when people rushed the barriers separating the pit from the seating area.

 

Sorry about that.

 

Yeah, playing with you guys, I got blind-sided, broke a rib. That was the last game of that season, so 3 weeks later, it was better, but, yes, plenty of guys felt there was more hitting in soccer than we'd ever learned. Ball was long gone.