MONTREAL – The wait drags on for Davy Arnaud.
Still struggling with concussion-like symptoms, the Montreal Impact captain has again been sitting out training this week. Arnaud has no idea when he’ll be able to re-join his teammates, who saw him go down injured in the 48th minute of their 6-0 win over Toronto FC in the Amway Canadian Championship on May 1st.
Arnaud tries to keep a smile, but the powerlessness ticks him off.
READ: How does a player get cleared to return after suffering a concussion?
“I told our trainers that I was at the point where, if they would tell me to wear my underwear on my head to bed, I’ll do it if it makes me better,” Arnaud told reporters on Tuesday. “Anything to make it better, but there’s not a ton you can do. It just takes time, and it’s the hardest part because as a player, when you have a knock, you’re used to have some pain but you can play through it and there are things you can do to make it better. It’s a little different.”
The manner in which Arnaud sustained the injury was unusual, too. Luis Silva corner kick, Arnaud headed clearance, man down. A ball that has been played a zillion times “caught me in the right spot,” Arnaud said.
“I thought maybe I’d been elbowed, or I’d gone head-to-head, and I didn’t remember exactly what had happened,” he recalled. “Then I saw it, and I saw it was the ball. I just took it, it seemed, off the top of my head. There’ve been some plays in the past where similar things have happened; you just take it off the top of the head and it stuns you for a little bit, you don’t feel completely right for a while, but nothing of that magnitude, I guess.”
The sound in his ears led Arnaud to realize “right away” that something was wrong, yet he still crawled to the side of the field for fear of keeping opponents onside.
READ: Montreal welcome break to work on set plays
The headaches and nauseas soon followed, and once again, the voice of the competitor in Davy Arnaud’s mind spoke the loudest. The Impact skipper tried to no avail to go for run in the first week of symptoms. They kept coming back.
“But they seem, in the past few days, to have been improving and hopefully, if it continues that way, I can start doing stuff again,” Arnaud said.
