Molino out for year after tearing ACL; T&T star injured knee in game against ex-MLS employers

Trinidad and Tobago ace midfielder Kevin Molino is expected to miss the rest of the year through injury, according to an ESPN report, after tearing the ACL in his left knee on Saturday while representing Minnesota United against his former employers, Orlando City, in the United States Major League Soccer (MLS) competition.

It is a major blow for Minnesota, who bought Molino for an MLS joint record of US$650,000 in the club’s debut top-flight season in 2017. The Trinidad and Tobago international, who has 19 goals from 43 starts for the Soca Warriors, is expected to undergo surgery in the coming weeks.

It is the second serious injury of Molino’s career after he missed most of the 2015 MLS season with a torn ACL in his right knee while at Orlando. The former Mucurapo East schoolboy and two-time Trinidad and Tobago World Youth Cup player rebounded from that setback with 11 goals and eight assists in his lone healthy MLS season in Orlando in 2016.

And, although Minnesota finished third from bottom in the Western Conference in 2017, he returned figures of seven goals from 30 games as an offensive midfielder.

Molino started 2018 with a bang, scoring twice in Minnesota’s opening 4-3 loss away to San Jose on 4 March. But then, six minutes after the restart of his second outing, disaster struck as he was replaced with a serious injury to his left knee, which will almost certainly rule him out of any further involvement on the football field in this calendar year for club or country.

Molino was likely to feature for Trinidad and Tobago in friendlies away to Guadeloupe and Martinique later this month. However, the Warriors’ next competitive game is in mid-2019, after the two-island republic was granted an automatic spot for the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

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