Americans Abroad

Reyna is out for 6-8 weeks with an ankle fracture.

The oft-injured Claudio Reyna will have surgery Friday to repair a broken bone in his left ankle and will be sidelined six-to-eight weeks. -- Manchester City web site photo --

By Robert Wagman (in Washington, D.C.)
SoccerTimes

(Thursday, December 29, 2005) -- United States midfielder and captain Claudio Reyna has a fractured bone in his right ankle and is expected to miss at least six-to-eight weeks.

Reyna, who has been playing recently on an extremely sore ankle, took himself out of Manchester City's 4-3 English Premier League loss at Wigan in the 65th minute Tuesday and he did not dress yesterday for City's 1-0 league setback at home to first-place Chelsea. The severity of the injury was not cited at the time.

According to his club, Reyna has a fracture of a small bone in the back of his right ankle which was diagnosed as the result of a CT scan given Wednesday. The results were announced this morning and he is scheduled to have surgery in the Netherlands tomorrow.

The 32-year-old midfielder has dealt with ankle and knee problems for the last several months. He missed four matches for Manchester City after having to leave a 1-0 loss at Arsenal October 22. He returned to action for the 5-2 rout of Charlton Athletic December 4 and, two weeks ago, Reyna was outstanding in a 4-1 victory over Birmingham City.

Saturday, he struggled against Wigan before leaving the game.

"The original injury happened in the Arsenal game," Reyna is quoted on the Manchester City web site. "It has been really sore and it didn't feel right. I could not train through the week and I was just trying to get through games. A CT scan revealed there's a break and now I'll proceed with having surgery on Friday. Luckily, the doctor is one of the leading guys in Europe and I'm happy to be seeing him and getting the problem cleared up."

At best, Reyna will be back in Manchester City lineup by the end of February. However, based on past history, Reyna tends to recover slowly from injury, so it is difficult to project when he might return.

"Within 6-8 weeks, I'll be completely back, up and running and, three weeks after the surgery, I should be jogging and building it up until I'm back, which shouldn't be too bad," Reyna said. "It's disappointing and there's never a good time for it. It's a player's worst nightmare, really. You just want to be playing and want to stay fit, so hopefully it heals well and everything goes to plan."

Reyna's injury could be a blow to the U.S. effort in the World Cup, which runs from June 9 to July 9 in Germany. Before U.S. manager Bruce Arena assembles his entire team in the U.S. in early May, the only two American friendly matches where he plans to use his European-based players are March 1 against Poland in Germany and March 22 against Germany in Dortmund. Otherwise, the overseas players, who serve as the core of the U.S. team, will have to achieve their fitness playing for their clubs.

The Americans will play three matches on home soil in May before departing for Germany.

Arena was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

With Reyna out, the chances increase that Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce will make a move to bring in midfield reinforcements during the January transfer window. He is reported to be making a bid obtain wide midfielder Albert Riera of Espanyol in Spain via a loan for the remainder of the season.

Robert Wagman is a SoccerTimes senior correspondent. E-mail Robert Wagman.