CARSON, Calif. -- Landon Donovan was back on the training ground on Friday for the first time since suffering a bone bruise in an Oct. 6 match against Real Salt Lake, but don't expect him to appear this Sunday against the San Jose Earthquakes.
On Friday, Donovan was admittedly on his own in training performing fitness work as he looks to return to action.
Donovan returned to the club last week after withdrawing from the U.S. national team due to what was later revealed to be a bone bruise on his left knee. In an interview with Sirius XM FC earlier in the week, head coach Bruce Arena stated that the club hopes to have the Galaxy captain back at some point during LA's final two matches of the season, but on Friday, when questioned about Donovan's injury and whether or not he'd be ready by Sunday or the playoffs, the Galaxy coach said that "we're not going to worry about that right now."
Following practice, Donovan admitted that while his condition is improving, it remains an ongoing process-- one that may prevent him from playing against San Jose.
"I'm getting better, progressing, it's a slow process, but I have a goal of being ready by the playoffs whenever that may start and that's what we're going to go," said Donovan. "This week, I would say is unlikely, but next weekend is TBD [To be determined] and after that we'll see.
"I've never had a bruise, but a bone bruise can be pretty painful and it's really just now letting it heal and dealing with the pain threshold," added Donovan. "I think that if we were in different circumstances, I'd just play through the pain, but the goal now is the playoffs and if it takes a missing a couple of games at the end of the season then it's better to be ready for the playoffs."
The Galaxy captain discusses more of his injury as well as the impact on the U.S. National Team below...
DONOVAN: "Well, the play happened and I had been dealing with that injury for about a month and I was kind of playing through the pain and figured that it was just similar. It subsided a little bit after the game, I had Sunday to rest and I thought that I would go and see how it was, so I got there and Ivan looked at me and he said, let's just be sure and get an MRI just to be sure. When he went in, we found there was pretty significant damage to the knee so I'm glad that we did it. I likely, could have tried to get better and played, but I'm glad that we had something to look at so that we could know that there was some pretty serious damage there."
(On what the previous injury was...)
DONOVAN: "Same, there was a bone bruise and also a PCL tear so that's been what has bothered me for the last couple of months."
(On when the injury surfaced…)
DONOVAN: “No, we were trying to pinpoint where it's from, but I've been in pain for a couple months and we weren't quite sure when any of those happened. One could have happened before the other, they could have happened simultaneously, it's hard to know."
(On whether he’ll require surgery in the offseason…)
DONOVAN: “We'll see, we're not sure yet."
(On where he experienced the injury and whether or not it happened during the Mexico friendly in August...)
DONOVAN: “Since the injury in the Mexico game, I've had all sorts of stuff with this leg...It's possible, I don't think it did, I think that it was probably on the way back from that and then as I recovered from that, something probably happened so hard to know."
