Portland Timbers captain Liam Ridgewell sustained a calf injury last week and missed Saturday's game against the LA Galaxy as he recovered from the injury.

Now, Major League Soccer is penalizing Ridgewell simply for suffering that injury.

The 32-year-old Timbers captain was selected for the MLS All-Star Game, which is set to take place at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, California Thursday night. But Ridgewell, who is still working his way back from the injury, is not healthy enough to compete in the match.

Since he won't be competing in the All-Star Game, Ridgewell will be suspended for Portland's next match against Sporting Kansas City Sunday due to a new MLS rule enacted last year to deter players from flat out skipping the All-Star Game.

Even though Ridgewell is missing the All-Star Game for a legitimate injury - and proved that when he sat out the critical game against the LA Galaxy last week - the league informed the Timbers that he would be ineligible to play against Sporting Kanas City.

"He wants to play in the All-Star Game," Timbers coach Caleb Porter said. "We want him to play in the All-Star Game. He had six tickets booked for his family to go, but he can't play in the All-Star Game. I can't understand how that rule works or how that's fair."

Porter said the Timbers spoke with the league this week in hopes of convincing them to make an exception to the rule in cases where a player is legitimately injured. But the league didn't budge.

While Porter said he understands why the rule might apply to a player that hasn't missed a league game around the All-Star Game and might be simply skipping out on the match, he said he doesn't understand why the rule would apply to a player that has proven to be legitimately injured.

"I didn't frankly even know it was a rule," Porter said. "It was something that was passed and not really communicated. Ultimately, we will continue to do what we can do, and that's try to get our player healthy. We can't put him in harm's way by forcing him into the All-Star Game to risk further injury."

Porter said that he is still not 100 percent sure whether Ridgewell would be healthy enough to play in time for Sunday's game, but the center back is making progress and might have been able to play against Kansas City if the MLS rule wasn't keeping him out.

With Ridgewell ineligible, the Timbers will likely turn to center backs Jermaine Taylor and Amobi Okugo, who played together against LA last week, but have yet to start a game together this season.

The Timbers have won just one game this season without Ridgewell in the lineup. They are 6-3-4 with Ridgewell on the field and 1-4-4 without Ridgewell this year.

"We don't even know for sure if he can play against Kansas City, but if he's healthy to play, then he should be able to play," Porter said.

Notes: Sporting Kansas City defender Matt Besler will be ineligible for Sunday's game due to the same rule that is holding Ridgewell out, but reporters in Kansas City confirmed this week that injury would have kept Besler out of the game regardless.

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg