Toronto FC captain Michael Bradley could return to action Sunday against Atlanta

Toronto FC captain Michael Bradley, who has missed the last nine games with a knee injury, could return to action Sunday against Atlanta United.

“(There’s a) very good chance that he could be available this weekend,” coach Greg Vanney told reporters Friday from the team’s pandemic base in East Hartford. “He’s been training full for the last few days. So as long as we don’t have any reactions (from training), we’d like to get him some (playing) time.

“This being the last game of a series (of five games in 16 days) and then going into a new series (the final four games of the regular season), we’ll try to figure out what that right number of minutes looks like to get him up and going again.”

Bradley suffered a Grade 2 sprain of the medial collateral ligament in his right knee late in a 1-0 loss to Montreal at BMO Field on Sept. 1. Bradley was felled by Impact midfielder Emanuel Maciel, whose red card on the play was downgraded to a yellow on video review.

Jozy Altidore (hamstring) and Justin Morrow (calf) have also missed action recently with Altidore possibly not ready to return until the playoffs.

Vanney said several other players will have to be re-evaluated in the wake of Wednesday’s 1-1 tie with the New York Red Bulls.

“Nothing that’s serious that we know for sure,” he said. “It’s just some things — fatigue and some little things — that might be going on that we need to assess over the next call it 24 hours or so, to see where some guys are at and what level of risk we may or may not want to take with them. We’ll have to see how the next couple of days go.”

He did not identify the players in question.

League-leading Toronto (11-2-5) is undefeated in eight games (6-0-2). Atlanta (5-9-4) enters the weekend in 10th spot in the Eastern Conference.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2020

The Canadian Press