If you were worried about the status of midfielder Roger Torres, you had good reason.

Wednesday, Union manager Peter Nowak told reporters the status of Torres, who sustained a left knee MCL sprain Monday, "doesn't look good" and that he wasn't willing to establish a timetable for the 20-year-old Colombian's return.

Torres, who was hurt in Monday's 4-2 reserve-league win over New England, has played 72 minutes in two matches this season.

Here's what Nowak had to say about Torres' injury:

On how soon Torres could return:
“It doesn't look good. I'm not the doctor. I'm trying to find the way right now to see that it's not only MCL. It could also be the meniscus. It could be a couple of things. If we were to decide to clean this up, not going one thing and trying to see if the other thing will work, it could be that it's a combination of things that we need to clean up in his knee, and that the therapy would be even longer. I don't want to predict any timetable for Roger, but it doesn't look good."

On the risk of returning too soon:
“Do you compensate something for something and actually you injure something else? I'm not talking because it was a bad foul. His knee went completely inside, so I knew something from the beginning was wrong. They will try to determine today and tomorrow what will be the definite procedure on this, but the MCL sprain is pretty bad and additional pieces were affected. Additional stuff is affected as well. There's still swelling, so you have to wait until the swelling to go down. You run the MRI to try to figure out the other part that got injured, and the other parts got injured, too."

Nowak made it clear that the Union's training staff will conduct an MRI on Torres' knee and determine the kind of treatment he'll need to endure.

Perhaps Nowak is playing up Torres' injury. Perhaps he isn't, and one of his top offseason signings (the Union purchased Torres' loan and own his rights outright) is legitimately hurt.

Only time will tell.

(Photo: Associated Press)