This is absolutely, positively not the way Edson Buddle needed to launch such a critical season personally, where “getting back on track” is so clearly Job One for the 2010 U.S. World Cup veteran.
Buddle returned to Major League Soccer last year, but his second engagement with the LA Galaxy proved, unfortunately, to fall about as flat as his one-year stay with FC Ingolstadt 04 in Germany’s second-tier.
Buddle left the Galaxy after a sparkling 17-goal season in 2010, but struck just three times last year for Bruce Arena’s team. On a title-winning team stocked with the likes of David Beckham, Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan, his modest production rose to the level of “alarming.”
So the Galaxy moved Buddle to Colorado in the offseason; it’s logical to believe a change of scenery might provide the best chance for Buddle to shake something loose here. A big start for Buddle in 2013 would surely be ideal.
But the 31-year-old striker is dealing with a lingering knee injury and will miss this weekend’s opener for the Rapids. Further, the details mentioned here – including words like “third opinion” and “further evaluation” and surgery as a “looming possibility” – have to ring the bell of alarm all over again, but in a wholly different way.