His soccer career derailed by a knee injury that didn’t heal as anticipated, Brent Richards has become perhaps one of the first Americans to have a recently-discovered knee ligament surgically repaired.

“My doctors told me I might be the only person who has ever had just this ALL surgery” separate from an ACL repair, Richards said.

That surgery took place in late January, almost exactly one year after the Camas native injured his left knee while training with the Portland Timbers.

Despite surgery in February of 2013 to repair his anterior cruciate ligament and a later operation to clean up scar tissue, Richards was unable to return to training. He missed the entire 2013 season, and in December was waived by the Timbers.

The presence of the ligament dubbed the anterolateral ligament was made public last year, when doctors in Belgium reported that they had identified the previously unnamed ligament in 40 cadaver knees. A friend showed Richards an article about the new ligament, and he then introduced his doctors to the anterolateral ligament research.