Columbus Crew defender Will Sands to miss rest of season with torn ACL
Crew defender Will Sands will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL in his left knee, the Crew announced Tuesday morning.
Sands suffered the injury early in the Crew's game at Charlotte FC on Saturday. In the seventh minute, as Sands and Charlotte winger Kamil Jozwiak chased down a long ball, Jozwiak knocked Sands to the ground. The contact didn't look egregious — Jozwiak was whistled for a foul on the play, and not issued a yellow card — but Sands injured his knee in the process and immediately grabbed for his left leg as he fell.
After several minutes of attention from the Crew's athletic trainers, Sands was taken off the field on a stretcher. Crew coach Wilfried Nancy's somber tone after the game made it clear that Sands had suffered a significant injury.
"We don't know exactly, but this is not good," Nancy said. "It's not good. For the moment, I don't want to talk, because I didn't meet the medical staff, but this is not good."
Sands, 22, was Nancy's first choice at left wingback. He started the season opener at Philadelphia before being substituted off at halftime with back spasms, which caused him to miss the next two games. Sands returned to the starting lineup March 18 and started each of the Crew's next six games.
"It is disappointing to lose Will for the year as a club and especially for him personally, as he was truly coming into form on the pitch early in the season," Crew president and general manager Tim Bezbatchenko said in a statement. "He has always attacked his preparation with great drive and positive energy, and we know he will carry that same mindset into his recovery process.”
The Crew signed Sands in January 2022 after three seasons at Georgetown, where he played primarily as a winger. With the Crew last year, Sands converted to play left back and made 12 appearances for a total of 639 minutes, including five starts in place of Pedro Santos when Santos was out with a hamstring injury.
With Sands' experience as both a winger and a fullback, he was a natural fit for the wingback role in Nancy's formation, which places a large amount of responsibility, both offensively and defensively, on the wingbacks. Sands displayed the work rate required to cover the amount of ground Nancy demands his wingbacks cover, while also using his ability on the ball to beat defenders one-on-one and regularly combining with the Crew's attacking midfielders to advance the ball into the final third.
In the aftermath of Sands' injury, the Crew acquired defender Malte Amundsen from New York City FC on Monday to fill the gap left on the roster at the wingback position. Amundsen fell out of favor with NYCFC coach Nick Cushing this season, but he made 59 appearances with 37 starts for the club across the 2021 and 2022 seasons, including NYCFC's playoff run to win MLS Cup in 2021.
Get more Columbus Crew news by listening to our podcasts
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Crew defender Will Sands tears ACL, out for rest of season
