Sporting Kansas City striker Dom Dwyer has scored three goals in Sporting Kansas City's last four games. But, Dwyer's first with his right foot since recovering from an offseason surgery came in Saturday's 3-0 defeat of rivals Real Salt Lake. Cue, the celebration.
Dwyer rushed to sideline to celebrate with Sporting KC Head Athletic Trainer Kenny Ishii.
The 26-year-old English-American underwent arthroscopic surgery in November to clean up bone spurs in his right ankle and stayed in Kansas City to rehab during the offseason.
"Kenny worked really hard for and with me in the offseason and so did all of the training staff here," Dwyer said of the celebration, "so I wanted to give him a big hug and let him know my appreciation."
Of Dwyer's 52 MLS regular season goals leading into 2017, just seven had been scored with his right foot.
With one third of his goals this season coming from his right foot, perhaps this will be a new trend in 2017 and Dwyer gives all the credit to the relationship he has with Ishii and his staff and the hard work put in all around.
"It's important to have a very open relationship with your training staff." Dwyer said. "You need to be able to talk about your body in an honest way. At some places guys might be scared to tell the trainer things, but here we have a really good training staff and we are very lucky to have them. So it's quite important as players to trust them and to utilize them and I definitely do that, this offseason especially. So that was really just my thank you to them because they always go above and beyond their call of duty."
During preseason, Dwyer and Ishii went through early morning rehabs and extra sessions - all the while saying that the hard work will pay off and Dom will be back to scoring goals in no time. If the first eight games of the season are any indication, they weren't wrong.
"The celebration was definitely memorable and special," Ishii said. "It's always great to see athletes succeeding on the pitch after overcoming injuries with hard work in rehab. It's one of my favorite parts of the job. It's exciting to see Dom back on the field and scoring goals. Celebrating like that is the cherry on top. It makes it a little bit more fun; Dom style.
"Injuries are the dark side of sports, so sometimes it's stressful and we need to deal with negative emotions. But, at the same time, our staff often gets compliments and we do feel that sense of appreciation from our players. This is just one example. I am very fortunate and thankful to work for a team like this."
