During each season, clubs have to deal with injured players. At the start of the season, it is in Lausanne that the infirmary fills up after each match.
Opening of the season against Biel, Emilijus Krakauskas must quickly leave his teammates. A few days later, he explains on Instagram that his season is over. The following evening in Davos, it was Michael Raffl who did not finish the match due to a foot injury which kept him away from the ice for a few weeks.
In Lugano on Saturday evening, Andrea Glauser broke his ankle and has six weeks to go. Very good in front of the cage, Ivars Punnenovs is also announced injured during the defeat of Sunday evening against Zurich. Centerpiece of the LHC, Jiri Sekac was unable to finish the match and his availability for Tuesday’s match against Rapperswil is not yet known.
To this list is added the absence since the start of the season of Tim Bozon, as well as the suspension of Miika Salomäki and the illness of Ronalds Kenins!
Like a parasite
Ten days ago, the plethoric contingent of the LHC caused some mockery. Many people wondered if it was possible to field six lines in attack. Today the situation has changed a lot and John Fust would not be against the repatriation of Guillaume Maillard, loaned to Bienne until the beginning of November. Except that the Vaudois striker, author of two goals in two matches, cannot return before, even in the event of an exceptional situation.
This exceptional situation, precisely, goes hand in hand with professional sport. And as so often, it is the Americans who know how to find the best formula. In the United States, we speak of an ‘injury bug’, an insect that would parasitize the locker room by knocking down the athletes…like flies.
On the side of the Lausanne players, there is no fatalism or excuses. “Yes, that can explain this drop in level during Sunday’s match, it is important players who are missing, noted Jason Fuchs. But in the end we have a good enough team to beat any opponent with our contingent, so that’s no excuse. But for sure it does a little something and you want to fight for them too.’
Blame it on bad luck#?
Usual partner of Andrea Glauser, Joël Genazzi will have to find a new ‘cortege buddy’ for the next six weeks: ‘It is clear that Glauser, you are not replacing him. He’s a good player. But all clubs are losing players, we must not look for excuses but find solutions. We didn’t have any training between the two matches on Saturday and Sunday, so we couldn’t adapt. But we did the preparation and we changed the pairs. So it’s not as bad as some might think. We are professionals, we know how others play so it should be fine.’
If by definition these injury problems are attributed to bad luck, we can also take a closer look and see that the injuries of Glauser and Sekac came on blocked shots. Quintessence of self-sacrifice and solidarity, the ‘block shot’ implies good timing so as not to end up with the body abused by the rubber. But looking at the two actions of the Lausanne players, we see that they arrived a little late and with poor technique. Maybe due to some fatigue.
What is certain is that John Fust cannot afford to lose two players per game. Let’s hope that Lausanne finds a powerful insecticide to drive away this very annoying parasite…
/ATS