This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Sandy • Jordan Allen saw that painfully consistent graphic for seven straight months. Each time he tuned in to watch his team play away from Rio Tinto Stadium, the weekly injury report popped up on his TV, and sure enough, there was his name glued to the screen for a few seconds.

That was when the frustration would boil a bit. That reminder was the perspective flashed to the versatile 19-year-old Real Salt Lake player. The rough hand dealt to Allen in his rookie year in Major League Soccer was, at best, random. One day his right knee was fine, the next it was sore and began to click. His mobility was compromised. The team decided to do an MRI simply as a precaution, not expecting to find much of anything.

There was extensive damage. Allen, signed out of RSL's Arizona-based academy as a Homegrown Player five months prior, underwent successful microfracture knee surgery last May 22, a procedure that would sideline him for the following eight months. He wouldn't start jogging until December and finally resumed training fully the first two weeks of January of this year.

"I've never really been out for anything more than like three weeks with an ankle sprain or something like that," Allen said.

The ensuing months were monotonous, to say the least. Once he was able to walk free of pain, Allen would follow the white lines at either Rio Tinto Stadium or America First Field softly kicking a soccer ball as he rounded the field over and over again.

Time crawled, but Allen healed. Walking with the ball transitioned to running. Light technical work turned to full training sessions, and eventually, he was thrust back into in-game scenarios in Casa Grande, Ariz., of all places where he spent time at RSL's academy. The 2015 preseason allowed Allen to progress and fine-tune his passion.

On Saturday, Allen made his Rio Tinto debut against the Philadelphia Union after his previous three first-team appearances all came away from Sandy. He was subbed on for forward Sebastian Jaime in the 65th minute a week after officially returning from his serious knee injury as a substitute in the season opener in Portland.

"It just felt really good to kind of release all that frustration I had from last year," Allen said. "[The injury] really just showed me how much I want to be playing. I realized without soccer, I don't know how much else I have that I really enjoy enough to dedicate myself to. I wake up and I'm excited to go train and work and get better. I don't know if I really have something that can replace it."

Allen's adaptable skill set allows RSL to place him as a wide forward, wide midfielder or at right back. He's been dubbed by the fan base and organization as a "Swiss army knife," a moniker which he has embraced.

"It's just one of those things where you have to make sure you're sharp at everything," he said. "I do finishing work with the forwards, do some stuff with the midfielders and positional stuff and talk to the defenders a little bit, just to make sure no matter what I'm sharp and I'm not hurting the team in any way because I haven't been training in any one specific spot. I accept any role I'm given on this team."

And he's making up for lost time. Allen has started out his sophomore season on the right foot, making Jeff Cassar's game-day 18-man roster in the first two weeks of the season, just as he had in 2014 before that right knee started bothering him.

"As long as I keep showing well, from there then I can start thinking about maybe starting games or more first-team minutes," Allen said, "but, for me, it's just consistently being in the 18 and giving Jeff something to think about."

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani