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Diego Rossi doubtful for Columbus Crew in the first round of the MLS Cup

Vaseline October 29, 2024

The Crew could be without forward Diego Rossi and several others for Game One of their first-round matchup of the MLS Cup against the New York Red Bulls.

The Crew’s availability report ahead of the first round lists four players as out or questionable. Rossi is doubtful due to a back injury, which developed into a problem over the last week of training and is not the result of one specific hit.

Rossi is the only player to have played in every Crew match this season, including all tournament matches and the Aston Villa friendly. In the regular season, Rossi scored 12 goals and 11 assists.

Along with Rossi, midfielder Taha Habroune (torso) and defender Steven Moreira (ankle) are listed as doubtful. Defender Malte Amundsen is unavailable for Game One as he is out with an adductor injury.

It is unclear when Amundsen or Habroune suffered their injuries.

Moreira has been recovering from his ankle injury since the 3-2 defeat to Inter Miami on October 2 and has already missed three games. Coach Wilfried Nancy was unsure on Friday whether Moreira would be ready to return.

“We need to see some more,” Nancy said.

Against the Red Bulls in the final match of the regular season, midfielder Mo Farsi was sidelined with a concussion, which he suffered during his time with the Algerian national team earlier this month.

Unlike Moreira’s injury, Nancy was optimistic that Farsi’s concussion would clear up in time for the playoffs, and the availability report indicates that is the case.

In the previous 48 games, the Crew had remained largely healthy, with only goaltender Evan Bush sidelined long-term after breaking his arm in April.

Sean Zawadzki could return for Columbus Crew ahead of the MLS Cup playoffs

Even after Sean Zawadzki appeared to get injured two minutes into a Campeones Cup match, he played another 75 minutes. The team would later learn that Zawadzki had a punctured lung and a rib injury.

Doctors initially gave Zawadzki multiple possible timelines for his return, leaving both Zawadzki and the crew unsure whether he would be on the field before the MLS Cup playoffs.

“It was an injury that I couldn’t really treat,” Zawadzki said. “It was a bit of a challenge, time will tell and it will be taken day by day.

“It obviously had a huge impact on my breathing, a punctured lung. So it really took time for that to fully heal, and that’s what worried me the most. The rib would obviously take time, but I think the breathing and that side of things really scared me the most.”

During the recovery process, Zawadzki and the medical staff tried to see how much physical activity and contact he could tolerate while monitoring his breathing. Every day, Zawadzki hoped to stop feeling pain from the simple act of trying to breathe.

Ahead of the Crew’s final regular-season game against the New York Red Bulls, Zawadzki took part in full training sessions, which indicated to coach Wilfried Nancy that Zawadzki was ready to return.

On October 19, less than a month after sustaining the injury, Zawadzki played 73 minutes for Red Bulls.

“It means a lot, especially to play in the last game of the regular season, to get going again and get that feeling again,” Zawadzki said. “It’s different doing things next to you, and the contact you get from there. … When you’re back in a game scenario, there are nuances to the game and it gets your brain thinking again.”

While Zawadzki admits there is still a sense of discomfort, the midfielder says he is “pretty close to 100%” ahead of Columbus’ best-of-three series against the Red Bulls in the first round of the playoffs.

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