NWSL Week 3 preview: How will Houston and Seattle cope in a world without Carli Lloyd and Jess Fishlock?

At least it wasn’t those three dreaded letters. A, the first letter of the alphabet, the first thing on a list. C, as in “for cat” or what I got on my 11th grade chemistry final thanks to the teacher trying to make the test so hard he accidentally made it impossible and had to grade on a 40-point curve. L, as in length or the subway that takes you from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back, maybe. Alone, they are innocuous. Together though, they’re dreaded. ACL, the acronym for anterior cruciate ligament. Together, they’re surgery and scars and months of rehab and games or seasons or Olympics or World Cups missed.

ACL was the first thing that came to mind last Saturday when Carli Lloyd left the Dash’s match against Orlando in the first half. Lloyd went down after making what looked like awkward but harmless contact with the ball as the Pride tried to clear. She was quickly back up though, and played for a few more minutes. It’s around the seventh minute when she walks off the field as Orlando sets up for a free kick. It happens toward the bottom of the picture on the YouTube stream and it’s so casual that if you’re not looking for it, you might not even notice. It takes a full two minutes from when Lloyd walks off the field until the cameras catch her getting treatment on the bench and the commentators acknowledge Houston’s been playing with 10. Lloyd is ultimately subbed out in the 13th minute, and all of the soccer internet immediately becomes doctors. Our collective diagnosis is not good.

It is Monday before the Dash release any information on Lloyd, and Soccer Internet, M.D., breathes a sigh of semi-relief. The diagnosis is not those dreaded three letters, but instead that Lloyd has sprained her medial collateral ligament, or MCL. Houston puts Lloyd’s recovery time at three to six weeks, which means barring any problems she should be back in a Dash uniform by mid-May or early June.

It’s roughly the same time that another player felled by injury last weekend should be returning for her team. That’s Seattle’s Jess Fishlock, who went down the day after Lloyd, too clutching her knee, too causing the ACLarm bells to sound.

Fishlock’s injury happens a little less casually than Lloyd’s. She gets tangled with Boston’s McCall Zerboni as the two fight for the ball, and is clearly in immediate pain, pounding the ground, grabbing her knee. Fishlock walks off limping, but under her own power, and reenters the game only a few minutes later. She doesn’t make it long though, and is ultimately subbed off for good in the 40th minute. That she played at all after initially going down becomes pretty impressive when word comes from Seattle on Thursday that Fishlock suffered a tibia fracture, with an expected recovery time of 4-6 weeks.

It should be noted here that Lloyd and Fishlock weren’t the only ones who were felled by the leg monster last weekend, as Portland’s Kat Williamson also went down with an apparent knee injury of her own in the Thorns’ match in Kansas City. As of Thursday, there was no word on Williamson’s status.

The injuries to Lloyd and Fishlock, while not as serious as most feared, are still major concerns for their respective teams. Lloyd had already scored a goal for the Dash this season and was expected to be a major contributor for Houston as they made a push for a first-ever postseason appearance. Fellow No. 10 Fishlock was an equally important part of a Reign team looking for a third consecutive NWSL Shield. She’d registered one assist so far this season.

So how do Houston and Seattle move forward with their respective playmakers absent for at least a month each?

For a Reign team that’s already missing Megan Rapinoe, who is recovering from an ACL injury suffered in December while with the USWNT, the loss of Fishlock leaves a major hole in the midfield. After playing two of the league’s weaker teams in Sky Blue and Boston -- and getting a result in just one of those games -- the month of May, or the month sans Fishlock, is much tougher schedule-wise. Seattle’s next five games: Kansas City, Orlando away, Portland, Chicago and Portland away.

The Reign currently have 18 players on their roster (NWSL rules allow for a maximum of 20), including Rapinoe and Fishlock. Elli Reed came in for Fishlock after the injury last weekend. Reed has been with the Reign since 2013, but hasn’t been a consistent starter. Reed did start in week one against Sky Blue and though she’s never scored for the Reign, she has tallied four assists through her three previous seasons with Seattle. The Reign also have midfielder Havana Solaun available. Solaun was picked up by Seattle in the 2015 draft, but an injury caused her to miss the 2015 season. She made her NWSL debut and played three minutes against Sky Blue, so far the only game action of her professional career.

But where this kind of thing might have previously derailed Seattle -- think the 2013 season and how completely terrible the Reign were until Rapinoe was finally available -- Laura Harvey has since built a team that’s not quite as reliant on one player. The Reign will miss Fishlock’s presence in the midfield and her fearless and tenacious play, but they certainly won’t be completely sunk without her. This is a team that still has Kim Little and Keelin Winters in the midfield.

Can the same be said for Houston though? While the Reign have a roster full of the same names that have already brought them two regular season titles, the Dash’s season was built around Lloyd’s presence. Houston has a talented pair of rookies in Janine Beckie and Rachel Daly -- as well as Morgan Brian, who made her season debut last weekend after missing the opener due to injury -- but none bring quite what Lloyd did. Both Beckie and Daly scored in their professional debuts in week one. The Dash’s schedule, like Seattle’s, won’t offer them many favors over the next few weeks either. Though the Dash face Sky Blue this week, after that it’s Kansas City away, Washington away, Orlando and Washington.

We’ve seen this thing, the “hold on tight until Player X returns from injury/international duty/alien abduction” one before, and it almost never works out. Again, think Seattle in 2013 with Rapinoe, or Sky Blue in 2014 with Nadia Nadim, or Boston in perpetuity with hopefully someone. By the time Rapinoe played for the Reign, or Sky Blue found Nadim, it was far too late. That’s the thing both the Dash and Reign will have to contend with over the next month or two, making sure they don’t slip too far down the table as they wait for Lloyd and Fishlock to return. Because even though it’s still early, a rough patch of results may prove to be even tougher to recover from than the injuries that got them there.

Friday

Sunday

Boston Breakers vs. Portland Thorns FC, 5 p.m., Jordan Field (YouTube)
Chicago Red Stars vs. Orlando Pride, 6 p.m., Toyota Park (YouTube)
Seattle Reign FC vs. FC Kansas City, 7 p.m., Memorial Stadium (YouTube)