CARSON, Calif. – Injuries last year cost Todd Dunivant his hold on the LA Galaxy's job at left back, and now that he's regained his health and fitness, he must adjust to a new role as Robbie Rogers’ backup.
Dunivant made his first start of the year in the Galaxy's 2-0 loss last weekend at Vancouver, but he could be back on head coach Bruce Arena’s bench when LA takes on the Seattle Sounders on Sunday afternoon at StubHub Center (7 pm ET, Fox Sports 1).
“My role is to be healthy, be an option for Bruce, be available, and then you see where the cards fall,” Dunivant said this week. “That's how it always works.”
From 2009, when Arena brought him in from Toronto for his second stint with the Galaxy, through 2013, Dunivant averaged nearly 30 starts a year in all competitions. That number took a big hit last year, when the 34-year-old missed most of the campaign due to an early-season abdominal tear and then a groin tear suffered about a month after he returned from his initial injury.
Rogers, a winger who had been employed primarily on the left, was impressive after moving to left back last June, and remains LA’s first-choice in the position this year. He didn't start in Vancouver after a rough beginning to 2015, but came on in midfield when Mika Väyrynen departed with a calf injury just before halftime and moved to left back when Arena pulled Dunivant in the 64th minute.
“It was good to get [Dunivant] some time, because all these guys we're going to need to use at some point in the season,” Arena said. “So we have to get them on the field, and, hopefully, that pays dividends at some point, that we have more than 11 players ready to play.”
Dunivant certainly is ready, especially after going through his injury-plagued 2014.
“It's so hard when you have injuries and it forces you out, and it's difficult to come back from that,” he said. “It's been a really long road to come back, but I've worked really hard to improve my fitness and improve my strength.”
The rehab was particularly hard on Dunivant because both of his injuries affected his core, restricting movement of any kind.
“Your core is everything, and if you don't have that, you can't function,” Dunivant said. “You obviously can't be a soccer player, but you can't even be a person. You're kind of stuck. You can't rehab, you can't do anything, because everything you do involves your core.”
The Galaxy looked at Dunivant as a center back in the final preseason match of this year and occasionally in training sessions, and he says it's “a role that I think I could fill if I needed to.”
It’s unlikely he’d play there in anything but a pinch though, with Arena saying LA doesn't “consider him a center back,” and would only play him there “if we needed it, I guess, but he's a left back.”
And that means he's the No. 2 left back at the moment, serving as something of a mentor to Rogers.
“We talk plays and mistakes, and I hear what he would do different,” Rogers said. “We're different kinds of left backs – I'm more of an attacking left back, and he's a little more conservative – but I've learned a lot really just from watching him.”
Dunivant praises Rogers' transition and notes that learning the position is “a process that always continues.”
“I'm still learning about left back. It never ends, and you don't just suddenly 'get' it ...,” he said. “Every game Robbie and I talk and kind of go over the opponent, who's playing right midfield and what to expect out of the game. It's an ongoing dialogue, and we both want what's best for the team, and that's getting wins. And that's our focus now.”
