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    • Diego Rossi is questionable for Columbus Crew in their MLS Cup first round game
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    Diego Rossi is questionable for Columbus Crew in their MLS Cup first round game

    Kathleen William Posted on

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    The Crew could be without forward Diego Rossi and several others in the first game of the MLS Cup first round against the New York Red Bulls.

    In the Crew's availability report before the first round, four players were either eliminated or questionable. Rossi is questionable due to a back injury that became an issue in the final week of training and is not the result of a specific hit.

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

    In addition to Rossi, midfielder Taha Habroune (torso) and defender Steven Moreira (ankle) are also considered questionable. Defender Malte Amundsen will not be available for the first game as he is out with an adductor injury.

    It is unclear when Amundsen or Habroune sustained their injuries.

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

    “We need to see a little more,” Nancy said.

    Against the Red Bulls, midfielder Mo Farsi was forced to miss the final game of the regular season due to a concussion he sustained during his time with the Algerian national team earlier this month.

    Unlike Moreira's injury, Nancy was optimistic that Farsi's concussion would heal in time for the playoffs, and the availability report suggests that is the case.

    The team had mostly remained healthy in the previous 48 games, with only goalkeeper Evan Bush having to take a longer break after breaking his arm in April.

    Sean Zawadzki is eligible to return for Columbus Crew ahead of the MLS Cup playoffs

    Even after Sean Zawadzki appeared to be injured two minutes into a Campeones Cup game, he played another 75 minutes. The team later learned that Zawadzki had a lung injury and a rib injury.

    Doctors originally gave Zawadzki several possible timelines for his return, leaving both Zawadzki and the crew uncertain 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 like that, time will tell and show day by day.

    “It obviously had a big 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 some time, but I think that. “Breathing and that side of things really scared me the most.”

    The recovery process included Zawadzki and medical staff pushing to find out how much physical activity and contact he could tolerate while also monitoring his breathing. Zawadzki hoped every day that he would no longer feel pain just by breathing.

    Leading up to the Crew's final regular season game against the New York Red Bulls, Zawadzki participated in full training sessions, which showed coach Wilfried Nancy that Zawadzki was ready to return.

    On October 19, less than a month after sustaining the injury, Zawadzki entered the Red Bulls' game after 73 minutes.

    “It means a lot, especially to be there in the last game of the regular season, to get back into the swing of things and get that feeling again,” Zawadzki said. “It’s different doing things away from home and the contact you get from there. … When you're actually back in a game scenario, there are nuances to the game and you get your brain thinking again.”

    Although Zawadzki admits there is still some lingering 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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    Kathleen William
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