LAFC’s Carlos Vela suffered a knock to his knee in preseason duty on Saturday. Any injury to the Mexican is like pulling out the central Jenga piece: catastrophic.
It takes just one poorly chosen Jenga piece to pull down the whole tower. While the structure may seem stable and secure, if the wrong one is selected when trying to parse it through a tight gap, it will all come tumbling down around it.
This image is a brilliant analogy for the importance of certain players in certain teams. Take Manchester City without Fernandinho this season. Atlanta United without Miguel Almiron. D.C. United without Wayne Rooney.
These players are the ‘Jenga pieces’ of their respective sides. While everything may look smooth and cohesive on the outside, take just them away and suddenly the whole team crumbles around them. Dependence on one player, like a Jenga tower being dependent on one particular cornerstone piece, looks stable but is actually extremely shaky.
For Los Angeles FC, their 2019 life likely flashed before their eyes when they saw their Jenga piece substituted in Saturday’s preseason win over the Vancouver Whitecaps. Carlos Vela, who had scored earlier on to give LAFC the lead, took a blow to the knee and was quickly withdrawn by a protective Bob Bradley.
It is not yet known if the injury is serious, but Bradley conceded the following after the match:
"“It’s the knee, he was protecting the ball and he sort of got hit a bit from the side. He’s sore and we just need to see how he looks tomorrow and get it looked at tomorrow.”"
It seems fine. Bradley was fairly calm about the whole situation, as if there wasn’t a long-term issue to be concerned about, one that could keep Vela out of a large portion of the season. There is still major doubt regarding his availability for the season opener versus Sporting Kansas City next weekend, but it seems as though any extended time on the sidelines has been avoided.
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That is good news. But the very fact that LAFC had to consider life without Vela would have highlighted their reliance on their DP star. Vela was the marquee signing last offseason, the founding face of the franchise, the player to get bums and on seats, before lifting them back of their seats as he weaved his way beyond hapless defenders once more. He was the cornerstone attacker of a vibrant LAFC team that scored 68 goals last year, the second-highest tally in MLS.
Of those 68 goals, 27 of them were directly impacted by Vela, either scored or assisted. And a whole lot more came from his ingenuity with the ball at his feet or his dynamic movement to drag defenders away and create space for others. While the likes of Diego Rossi, Christian Ramirez and Adama Diomande are all dangerous attacking players in their own right, Vela is the glue that holds them all together. Without him, you feel everything might just fall apart.
The seriousness of Vela’s injury remains to be seen. It does not sound overly urgent. But it got me thinking. And I bet it got LAFC fans thinking. And I bet it got LAFC and Bob Bradley thinking. ‘What happens if Vela goes down?’ I think the answer can be found in the game of Jenga.