It's been a long two years for Sporting KC winger Graham Zusi. Over the past 22 months, the MLS All-Star has played more than 85 games in all competitions for club and country. That number is matched by only a handful of players in Major League Soccer.
Despite Sporting KC's early 2014 MLS Cup Playoff exit, Zusi's busy campaign was expected to continue when U.S. Men's National Team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann named him to the preliminary roster for the current training camp in Europe. But after discussions with the Sporting KC training staff as well as with US Soccer, Zusi decided it was best to skip the current camp and allow his body to rest including a foot injury that plagued him over the final few weeks of the season.
"I picked up a foot injury in mid-October," Zusi told SportingKC.com. "It was a stress reaction that could have turned into a stress fracture had I continued to play on it. Although I love every opportunity to play for the national team, all parties thought it was best to skip this camp and allow the foot the time it needed to heal."
Sporting KC's three-time Team MVP has become a mainstay for Klinsmann's USMNT squad over the past three years. He has earned 28 camps since the start of 2012 and featured in all four USMNT matches at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
And although Sporting KC did not advance to the quarterfinals of the 2014-15 CONCACAF Champions League nor qualify for the 2015-16 competition, 2015 promises to be another busy campaign for the Florida native. That campaign could start as early as the first week of January if Klinsmann selects Zusi for his fourth consecutive January training camp.
"No one is more disappointed with how 2014 ended than the players on this team," Zusi said. "We expect to win MLS Cup every year and that will once again be our focus going into 2015. On the national team front, we have another exciting year ahead with the 2015 Gold Cup our focus.
"Although I'm disappointed to not be playing for Sporting KC or the national team right now, this additional time off will give me the opportunity to rest my foot and come back even stronger next year."
