Yura Movsisyan wasn’t at 100% on Thursday. However, the Real Salt Lake forward knows there isn’t much time to let the bone bruise in his left heel recover as RSL gets set for the final two matches of the regular season and the MLS Cup Playoffs to follow.
“It’s going to hurt. But it’s crunch time,” Movsisyan said after his return to the practice field after being limited in his workouts the last two weeks after suffering the injury in training. “It’s time to go through some pain.”
Movsisyan has played just 14 minutes in the last two matches and while RSL has looked to raise the intensity as the playoffs draw nearer, the club has scored just once in the last four matches. His presence is crucial to turning that trend around, so having him back on the field was a boon for RSL Head Coach Jeff Cassar and Thursday’s training session, as simplistic as it may seem, was important for the club.
“We got him sweating. Got him involved. Got him scoring some goals, which is nice. I think it was a massive step forward,” Cassar said. “Psychologically, it’s really important that our forwards find the net, whether it’s in a shooting drill or in the games. Today, we had a lot of that. It was really promising today. I’m really excited about today.”
Movsisyan returned to Real Salt Lake this season after spending 2009-2015 in Denmark and Russia. He has nine goals in 27 matches, sharing the club’s top goal-scoring mark with Joao Plata. However, his bone bruise had him watching from the stands in a scoreless draw with FC Dallas on September 24 and then he played 14 minutes off the bench against San Jose on October 1.
He has been diligent with his treatments and while he still feels pain in his heel, he chose to return to the practice field to get fit in hopes of being available to start in the regular season home finale on October 16 against Sporting Kansas City.
“I wouldn’t say I’m feeling too good. I’ve been out for a while now. The fitness is an issue,” Movsisyan said. “It’s just pain. It’s something I can play through and hopefully it doesn’t get worse and I can continue training. It’s the last two games. We need to win these games and I want to do everything I can to help the team out.”
