ORLANDO, Fla.—If ever a player sounded like he was anxious to make up for lost time after missing the starting gun for this season, it was Orlando City SC’s Brazilian captain Kaká after the team’s training session on Tuesday.
Having enjoyed a purple pre-season in every sense, the Lions’ star Designated Player was struck down by a thigh injury just two days before the season opener at home to Real Salt Lake, and he has yet to kick a ball in anger in 2016.
All that will change on Sunday when Orlando entertain Portland Timbers at the Citrus Bowl on Sunday (8 pm ET; FS1), and no-one will be more pumped up than the home team’s No. 10.
“It was a tough period for me,” Kaká said. “Just days before the first game I got this injury. But I always try to take the experience on the right side and, if it had been one week before, it would have been much worse. But it is no problem now. Now, I am ready to play.
“And this week is going to be awesome. I get to play my first game; it is at home, and I will be playing with Antonio [Nocerino] again. We have had a full week of training together now and it’s going to be awesome to play with him again.”
Indeed, the words “ready to play” and “awesome” peppered the conversation as Kaká met with the media for the first time since the week before the Salt Lake game, and he made no secret of the fact he expects to make an immediate mark on his return against the Timbers.
“They are the reigning champion so this is going to be a very good game for us,” he insisted. “Last season we played against the Galaxy [when Orlando won 4-0] as the champions, and we played very good, so this year it should be the same. It is a great opportunity for us. They are a good team and it should be a great atmosphere so we hope we can win again and I think we can.
“I want to improve my numbers [9 goals and 7 assists last season] and I want to win a championship, so I have to think about it step-by-step, and this is what I am trying to do now.”
Getting to link up once more with former AC Milan teammate Nocerino is definitely high on Kaká’s priority list, and he is encouraged by the team’s recent efforts to add depth to the roster, which also include bringing in former Real Madrid and Brazil striker Julio Baptista, whom the team hopes to unveil for the crowd at halftime on Sunday.
“I said that the most important thing to win the championship is to have a strong group and, now, with Nocerino and Baptista, we have this strong group,” Kaká said. “Because there are going to be times when we don’t have Cyle [Larin], we don’t have me, and we have other players who get injured or go to their national team, we need to replace them with players at the same level, and I think now we have the group to do that.”
