BEAVERTON, Ore. – It's been an arduous 14-month journey back from injury for Ben Zemanski.
In the 23rd minute of a February 2015 preseason match against Vancouver Whitecaps FC, the Portland Timbers midfielder stretched out his right leg to try and win the ball off the foot of the Whitecaps' Pedro Morales.
It was a routine play, the kind of play that Zemanski had done hundreds if not thousands of times before in his soccer career. That time, though, something went wrong.
“I knew it immediately,” Zemanski recalls of that moment. “I knew it was a pain I hadn't felt before and I knew it was something bad in my knee.