CARSON, Calif. -- Jose Villarreal figures to be sidelined another couple of weeks with a hamstring injury suffered nearly a month ago, and he realizes some of the blame for his prolonged absence is on him.
The 21-year-old attacker, who strained his left hamstring in training before the April 4 loss at Vancouver and then aggravated it three weeks later in a U.S. under-23 national team friendly, has missed LA's last three games and did not travel for Wednesday night's Western Conference clash at Real Salt Lake and Saturday's at FC Dallas.
“I'm doing pretty well. I'm progressing pretty fast,” Villarreal said Monday. “I don't really know a time frame yet, but, hopefully, next week I'll be training fully. This week is going to be mostly just getting fit and getting back to my base and going from there, but I'm going to be good in two weeks, I'd say.”
Villarreal started the season strongly on the left side of midfield and was arguably the Galaxy's best player over the first four games. He scored in the opening-day victory over Chicago (WATCH IT HERE), assisted Gyasi Zardes in a draw at Portland (WATCH IT HERE), and then fed Robbie Keane's opener in the tie with Houston (WATCH IT HERE).
He was hurt in the March 28 loss at D.C. United, made a brief comeback in the victory over Seattle two weeks later, then went down again
when the U-23s beat Mexico on April 22 at StubHub Center
.
U.S. coach Andreas Herzog inserted Villarreal after Club Tijuana's Alejandro Guido was hurt midway through the first half. Villarreal lasted barely 15 minutes.
“I was already coming back from the first injury,” Villarreal said. “It was kind of dumb of me to step in at that time. But it was the Olympic coach; I wasn't going to say no to him.
“He said hop on, and I should have said, you know, 'Put someone else in; I should warm up properly.' But things happen.”
Head coach
Bruce Arena was critical of Herzog after Villarreal came up lame
. The Galaxy have been hit by a swarm of injuries, the most debilitating a groin injury that has sidelined captain Keane the past four games.
Keane didn't travel for the matches in Sandy and Frisco, and neither did defender Todd Dunivant (leg), forward Edson Buddle (calf) and midfielder Kenney Walker (hamstring). Dunivant, Buddle and Walker said they hoped to be training fully next week.
Villarreal isn't trying to rush back this time.
“I'm not trying to push it where I can reaggravate it again and be out for a month or a month and a half, so we're taking things pretty slowly here,” he said. “There's just so much frustration with all the guys that are hurt and trying to get everybody back fully recovered. ...
“This week I start moving around. I feel I can pass the ball pretty fine, it's just accelerating and decelerating where I kind of feel the pain, so we'll see how it goes.”
Scott French covers the LA Galaxy for MLSsoccer.com.
