Amid painful season, Joakim Nilsson finds joy in practicing with St. Louis City SC as return nears
This season has been an ordeal for City SC center back Joakim Nilsson. There were some broken ribs, then there was a hamstring injury, then the reaggravation of that hamstring injury and then a third hamstring injury. None of it was any fun.
"I just want the joy back," he said.
It looks like he's got it. This week has been one of his happiest of the season, certainly one of the best in three months. Nilsson doesn't expect to be able to play Saturday when City SC faces San Jose, saying he needs a week and a half of training to be cleared, but he has resumed training with the team, emerging from the cocoon of the training room and the isolation of running on his own while the rest of the team does standard soccer work.
"Best I've felt in a long time," he said. "Since July, it's been a mental battle as well. I think I am a positive guy and try to look at it a positive way. But when it keeps happening, it's harder. But then again, it's nice to be here, be around the guys and finally, out on the field."
"Just to be part of a passing drill is amazing when you have been out for three months," said teammate and fellow Swede Rasmus Alm.
This season somehow managed to be worse than Nilsson's 2023 season with City SC, when he played in just nine games. But that one he saw coming after having two knee surgeries in November of 2022 for an injury he suffered playing with the Swedish national team. But for 2024, his knee was fine again, and he was ready to go and be the centerpiece of City SC's back line, like sporting director Lutz Pfannenstiel had planned when he signed Nilsson out of Germany.
"This year, it's been a lot of ... stuff going on," he said.
The cracked rib, from a practice collision with teammate Nokkvi Thorisson, seems almost incidental to what followed. He hurt his hamstring in the 36th minute of a game with Dallas on June 15 and missed the next six games. He came back and, in the 85th minute of that game on July 17, reaggravated the injury. As he was working his way back from that one, as he began stepping up his workload to get ready to return, he did it again. Assuming he doesn't play this Saturday, he will have been out 16 of the past 17 weeks.
Which may be why being on the practice field Tuesday — feeling better, training with his teammates, not rehabbing with his teammates — meant so much to him.
"(Tuesday) was the first day of training again with the guys," he said, sitting on the back seat of a golf cart just outside the training room, "and it's just so fun, and you compare it to being in the gym or out there, it's great."
Even though he lived through it, he can't explain how this season played out the way it did. The rib injury was one of those things that happened, but then came the hamstring injuries, all on his left leg, the same leg that is home to his surgically repaired knee.
"I wish I had an answer," he said. "I wish they had an answer. We are searching for answers. But obviously, maybe it's related to the knee, it could be, I don't like to talk about it, but it's an injury that can take time to fully heal."
The team was cautious when he came back from the initial hamstring injury, with interim coach John Hackworth giving him an extra week of recovery after he'd been cleared to play, only to see him get hurt again in the next game. Too soon?
"Yeah, obviously," Nilsson said. "Now, when we look back at it, I don't want to regret anything, but I was feeling fine. I had one training week that I felt really fine. And, yeah, it happened in the, what was it, the 85th minute or something. We've said it to everybody. Maybe we should have done something different. Maybe played a half or something, but it's done now. I don't want to look back at it, but that was in a phase where we were also struggling and I was eager to get back. And like I said, I don't put any shame on someone. In the end, I guess I wasn't prepared fully fit to play 90 minutes."
Then came the third hamstring injury, though it was in a different spot and not as severe. It came just as he started to increase his workload.
"That was actually way more frustrating," he said, "because I was doing everything, and we took it a little bit more cautious. And then after the third consecutive day with training with the team, it happened, and that was a minor one, which was good but still frustrating, when you've been feeling so good and then something like that happens. You want to give back to everybody working with me on the side now, on the field, you want to show that you're fit, and the numbers and everything that we look at has been looking good. So it's been a little bit of a mystery, to be honest."
The simple solution would be to shut down Nilsson for the rest of the season, to give his hamstring the benefit of additional months, not just weeks, to feel better. But the issue now is not only for Joakim Nilsson's hamstring but for his head, for the mental part of the game. He's played in just 23 of City SC's 63 regular-season games so far.
"For me, it's a preparation for next year," he said. "Also, for my mind to feel that I am needed in a way. ... Obviously, I have to be honest with them. They have to be honest with me. We have to look at numbers. We have to see how prepared I am physically but I think now this time, I feel a lot better, and I think we're on a good path. I want to play every game, but in my mind, we have to be a little bit cautious.
"If I don't play, it's not a disaster, because if you look in the big picture, there's the next season also, and I don't want to go into the offseason with just being in the gym. But I think we are all on the same page that it looks a lot better now, and I feel a lot better now, and we can progress it with being a bit cautious, and then get some minutes. That's what I want."
Soccer reporter
