The first thing that crossed Will Johnson’s mind when his 2014 season came to an end wasn’t the mind-numbing pain from the fractured tibia and fibula in his right leg.
It wasn’t how the Portland Timbers would fare without their captain down the season’s final stretch. It wasn’t even whether the injury would mean that Sept. 27 day in Toronto would be the last time he’d ever step on a soccer field again.
He first thought of his wife and his family, all looking on during the Timbers match that day at BMO Field against Toronto FC, and how it would look to them.
So he did his best not to show emotion.
“I knew a lot of people, my wife, would be watching, family, so I just tried to hold on for deal life and not let the pain get to my face,” Johnson told the media Friday at the team training facility, his first expansive comments since the injury and subsequent surgery. “… But it hurt.”
And it hasn’t been an easy road since that sunny afternoon in Toronto.
He couldn’t put any weight on his right leg for 12 weeks, leading to a lot of couch time and Netflix binging on Sons of Anarchy, a TV series he was made aware of after he discovered he had inadvertently named his son, Jaxx, after the show’s lead character. And while lounging around isn’t exactly in the feisty midfielder’s character, that wasn’t the worst during the early days of the injury. The worst, he said, was not being able to pick up his son, born just a few weeks before the injury, or play with his 2-year-old daughter.
“Those things really break you down far more than any pain physically,” Johnson said. “Just the mental side of things when I was in the cast.”
He also had a second surgery this winter to adjust bone screws that were bothering him. But he’s since had the cast removed and has started rehabilitation, running through drills with fellow injured midfielder Diego Valeri (torn ACL) while the rest of the team trains this preseason.
“What happened, happened,” Johnson said. “You can’t change that, so my mindset from day one post-surgery has always been just to take every day as it comes, and whatever the body allows you to do to push it to that point and use that to just get back fit, 100 percent as quickly as possible.”
And with Johnson’s make-up -- he's a former Canadian national team captain and the Timbers fiery leader and captain since he was acquired from Real Salt Lake before the 2013 season -- there’s never been a question as to how he approaches his rehab. And that’s with full force.
“He’s a high character guy, and he’s become the type of pro he’s become because of that character, that attitude, that professionalism,” Timbers head coach Caleb Porter said. “So when you see guys like him, when they get injured, they always have a little bit better of an advantage coming back from injuries because of their professionalism. … He’s the type of guy you’re going to have to slow down.”
Johnson said Friday that there’s been no updated timetable for his return other than the original six months set forth after the surgery, which would put him back into the mix in late March, early April. He said he’s not thinking about that at all.
“You don’t want to come back at 90 percent; I think that’s disrespectful to the club, to the teammates, to put yourself out there when you’re not 100 percent,” he said.
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As for the injury, suffered when he went in hard on a tackle after losing the ball to a defender in the first minute of the eventual 3-2 loss to TFC, he said he’s watched the replay on a number of occasions, which he said doesn’t bother him.
He said he knew it was broken immediately, but wasn’t sure how badly. That’s when everything started racing through his mind, especially considering it’s the first major injury of Johnson’s career.
“That’s the part where you’re anxious because you don’t know how bad it is because obviously this kind of injury can be career ending,” he said.
He also said it’s easy to second-guess how it transpired.
“On one hand you could have jumped out of the way,” he said. “On the other hand, I’m the captain of this team, and it was a massive, massive game, and I wanted to set the tone and make sure that my guys knew that I was committed to making a statement tackle on the first play of the game.”
He said it’s only natural to wonder how he’ll react the first time a similar situation occurs upon his return to the field. But he said overcoming those doubts will be a process, much in the way that walking and kicking the ball again, without thinking of the pain, has been.
“With my personality, I don’t think it will be an issue,” he said. “I love tackling. I love the feeling of it. It’s a big part of my game, and I don’t plan on changing anything. … I’m not going to let one instance change the player and person that I am.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
