Toronto FC captain Jonathan Osorio will miss the Reds’ return to BMO Field on Saturday after suffering a knee injury in training, according to head coach Robin Fraser.

Osorio picked up the injury while “scoring a really good goal,” Fraser said to reporters including Waking The Red on Friday. “It was the end of a good move, and just tweaked his knee a bit.”

Fraser said that he doesn’t expect Osorio to be ready for Saturday’s match, but he also doesn’t think he will be out for an extended period of time.

Osorio has played nearly every single minute for the Reds this season, going the full 90 in 17 of the club’s 18 MLS matches and providing a trio of assists for his teammates. The one exception is that he missed Toronto FC’s scoreless draw with CF Montreal in the first game coming out of the summer’s World Cup break due to yellow card accumulation.

Osorio was also with Jesse Marsch’s Canada squad over the summer, making a couple of appearances at his second World Cup.

“I don’t think it’s serious like four months,” Fraser said. “I don’t think it’s like that. As somebody who’s done that quite a few times, MCLs that way, they can just be persistent or can linger a bit. I don’t think it’s a serious injury.”

Courtesy: Sean Pollock/Waking The Red

In more positive news, Toronto FC’s early-season injury crisis otherwise appears to finally be nearing its conclusion as they look to turn their form — which was in many ways affected by player availability — around.

Djordje Mihailovic is back in the starting lineup and on the scoresheet, and both left back Matheus Pereira and defender Lazar Stefanovic are back in full training after long-term injuries of their own.

Defensive midfielder Nelson Palacio, one of Toronto FC’s summer acquisitions, is finally nearing full fitness and full training with the club after joining from Real Salt Lake as well. He “is going to be in full training maybe next week” according to Fraser, as will defender Nicksoen Gomis.

“It’s weird, I said to one of the trainers the other day, I’m looking around the field, going, ‘Who’s in the training room right now? Basically, no one,’ and it’s been a while since we’ve been close to this healthy,” Fraser added. “It feels like a rebirth, really, to have so many guys available that we haven’t had available most of the year.”

“It feels like when we sit down and do videos, the room feels so full because we have so many guys available,” he said. “I think training has been really sharp because of it. I can’t speak enough about what competition does for a team.”

Having a selection dilemma is a good problem to have for Fraser, who had to call players up from Toronto FC II almost every week in the first few months of the season. An important match against the Revs on Saturday is the perfect test to see where a new-look TFC side stacks up against one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

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