After Sunday’s match, Bruce Arena didn’t shed a lot of light on how Adam Buksa was feeling after leaving the game due to an apparent head injury.
The New England Revolution were able to walk away with the victory on Sunday night but they didn’t leave Gillette Stadium unscathed.
In the first half Gustavo Bou chipped a ball to Adam Buksa who was heading towards goal. James Pantemis came out of his goal leading to a collision between the goalkeeper and the Polish striker.
Buksa went down and it wasn’t pretty. The replay showed that Pantemis was trying to punch the ball but he ended up connecting with Buksa’s head.
The 25-year-old was down for some time but ended up walking off the field under his own power and soon returning to the game rather quickly.
This would prove to be a mistake as just 15 minutes later Buksa went down and the television feed showed Buksa looking confused and just out of sorts. He would be replaced by Teal Bunbury and that was the end of the Polish strikers night.
Bou said after the game that he saw Buksa at halftime and the striker said he was feeling dizzy. “Hopefully, now that it’s been a while, he’s had a chance to recover and feel better,” Bou stated.
Head Coach and Sporting Director Bruce Arena said in his postgame press conference that the club would know more about Buksa’s injuries in the coming days. When asked why he wasn’t immediately taken out of the game, Arena didn’t exactly shed light on the situation.
He said, “I don’t know. I didn’t go to medical school.”
Tom Quinlan followed up asking Arena about the concussion protocol and if it worked in this case with Buksa.
Arena said, “In that particular situation where he went down the second time, you can use a concussion substitution, which we probably didn’t do right. We could’ve substituted Adam [Buksa] on a concussion protocol and still had five substitutions left. And we probably did that part wrong. So, I think that part of the protocol is correct. I don’t know if the player has a concussion. I think the injury is to the cheekbone, even though I could be mistaken. So, I don’t know exactly with that. I may need to be corrected. I’m not exactly sure why he came out the second time, but I do know that he has an issue with his cheekbone. Whether that’s a combination of a possible concussion with a fracture, I really don’t know.”
I am also not a medical professional but when you combine the replay, with Buksa going down and gesturing like he is confused, and Bou saying that he was dizzy, it sure sounds like the 25-year-old was concussed. Seeing that he came back into the game so quickly one has to wonder if the medical staff thoroughly examined Buksa for a head injury.
Hopefully, Buksa feels better in the morning but head injuries need to be taken seriously. So it seems likely that New England is without Buksa for a while.
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