The top team in the Eastern Conference is going to lose their best player for a while.
DC United on Tuesday announced that forward Fabian Espindola "is expected to miss six weeks" with a strained medial collateral ligament in his right knee.
Espindola suffered the injury just seconds after kickoff of DC's 4-2 win in Montreal on June 11 on a tackle delivered by Felipe Martins.
The Argentine is an early candidate for league MVP with seven goals and eight assists for DC, the team that acquired him during the 2013 Re-Entry Draft after six years with Real Salt Lake and one with the New York Red Bulls.
The projected six-week recovery time means that Espindola's earliest return would be the July 30 home match vs. Toronto FC. He is expected to miss out on a total of four league matches and Tuesday night's US Open Cup match against Rochester.
