Cassio’s preparations for the start of the season have hit a hurdle with the Adelaide United left back struck down by a quadricep injury.
Cassio-s preparations for the start of the season have hit a hurdle with the Adelaide United left back struck down by a quadricep injury.
Heading into his seventh Hyundai A-League campaign, the 33 year old ruptured the quadricep tendon in his right leg in an innocuous training mishap last month.
The two-time Adelaide United Club Champion is currently in the early phase of his recovery, with the injury set to prevent him from rejoining the Reds- main training group until close to the club-s opening round clash against Perth Glory on October 13.
“Cassio is on a specific strengthening program…the key is for the tendon to heal and that will dictate the progress of his rehabilitation,” Reds High Performance Manager Sean Tagg said.
“We-re very pleased with how his recovery is going and the aim is to have him back to basic training in six weeks and then full training by the start of the season.”
“He-s progressing well with his strength, he-s into light running work, the strength in his quad is coming back so he-s on track and it is really dependent on when he moves to the next stage – then we-ll have a much better idea then of how quickly he can be back into full training.”
“It is a setback for him but because we-ve got such a long pre season, coupled with the fact that it-s a tendon injury, which means once it has healed it is fixed properly, we are confident he will be good to go.”
In other squad news, defender Antony Golec has been training away from the main group as he recovers from a torn muscle in his gluteus, while new signing Isaias Sanchez is expected to be out for up to two weeks with a quadricep strain he got in the trial game against MetroStars in what was his first match in eight weeks.
“Apart from those guys, everyone else is going well, we just need to keep progressing, we-ve got nine weeks to go until our first A-League game and there is still a lot of work to be done in that time,” Tagg said.
