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Sandy • Waiting to exhale? Go ahead. Jeff Cassar did late Wednesday night.

Real Salt Lake's coach confirmed Thursday after the club's training session that captain Kyle Beckerman is fine after leaving Wednesday's U.S. men's national team friendly against Mexico with a leg injury. Beckerman left in the 60th minute after hobbling in preparation for a tackle. Replays indicated that it might have been a knee injury, but U.S. Soccer told reporters it was a left thigh bruise.

Cassar said he immediately texted Beckerman when he saw the replay, nervous that the longtime RSL midfielder had suffered a serious injury. Beckerman responded to Cassar postgame and told his coach he wasn't worried. Beckerman tweeted after the match and said, "I'm doing just fine." Both Beckerman and RSL goalkeeper Nick Rimando, who started and went 45 minutes in the USMNT's 2-0 win over Mexico in San Antonio, Texas, were at Rio Tinto Stadium today to work on preparing for Saturday's match against the Vancouver Whitecaps, Cassar said.

Asked if Beckerman would be available Saturday, Cassar said, "I think he's going to be fine, you know? It's now making the best choice for him and the team, but it's going to be hard to keep him off the field, that's for sure, because I know he wants to be on there."

Cassar said had Beckerman not injured his thigh, he thought the chances that the 32-year-old RSL midfielder would go the full 90 minutes may have been possible.

"Once I heard he was really fine and not injured, I started to think that he came out at the right time for him to still be available for us, because if he had went 90 [minutes] on that surface, which I heard was very hard and very demanding on their bodies — it would have been tough for me to talk Kyle out of it — but it would have been tough to have him go because we've got to make good decisions for the players," Cassar said.

The impromptu pitch laid inside the Alamodome in San Antonio for the friendly drew sour reviews from players to coaches to media members Wednesday night. Cassar said he can't allow himself to stress when sending such key players on international duty — especially on such a suspect playing surface.

"I tell myself, 'It is what it is.'" he said. "But yeah, when the final whistle's over, obviously I want the U.S. to win, which they did and it was a great result, the guys come back with a positive energy about them, but the whole time I'm thinking just, 'When're they going to get subbed? And just play to their best of ability and get through the game safe.'"

Should Cassar choose to rest Beckerman, who has played the entirety of all five of RSL's matches to date, he mentioned three names as possible candidates to replace Beckerman's defensive presence in the midfield: Luke Mulholland, John Stertzer and offseason signing Pecka, who has been hampered with injuries early on in 2015.

Of note: Vancouver midfielder Pedro Morales will miss Saturday's match at Rio Tinto Stadium. The Whitecaps playmaker was shown a red card in a 1-0 loss at San Jose on April 11. An independent review panel denied Vancouver's appeal.

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani