Oakville native Kara Lang had to hold back her competitive juices and sit out Sunday’s 0-0 draw between Canada and Mexico in a soccer friendly in Vancouver.

Lang, who retired in 2011 after suffering two serious knee injuries, said she’s only at 95 per cent of her pre-retirement form, and doesn’t want to risk injury by coming back too soon.

The 27-year-old striker served only in a supporting role, even though coach John Herdman named her to the national team’s roster last week.

“That extra 5 per cent at the international level is a lot,” Lang said in a telephone interview from Vancouver. “But time is on my side.”

She winced at what happened to Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose, who is now out indefinitely with a knee injury after sitting out last season recovering from a torn ligament in his left knee.

Now it’s his other knee that is injured.

“That was sad to hear, especially after I feel he did the right thing by taking his time and coming back,” Lang said. “I feel that needs to be the norm instead of athletes rushing to come back.”

Lang regrets having “paid the price” for trying to come back within six months of her injuries.

To her, Rose was a bit of a role model in how an athlete should come back.

Lang also hopes Tampa Bay Lightning star Steven Stamkos isn’t pressured to come back too soon, even if it means missing the Olympics.

“With the Olympics so close, that’s obviously devastating,” she said.

The women’s national soccer team will be in Vancouver until March. Lang will travel between Vancouver and her home in Los Angeles.

There’s no exact target date for her return, but she would like nothing better than to come back against the U.S. team Jan. 31 in Houston.

“Obviously, to play against the U.S. in my first game would be awesome,” she said.

Lang points to the Cyprus Cup in February as a more realistic comeback.

Herdman says the only goal he has for Lang is to get her on the pitch in time for the women’s FIFA World Cup in 2015, with Canada acting as host.

On the advice of the coach, Lang trained in Montreal with B2ten, a program funded by Canadian business people to promote athletic excellence. Instead of addressing the knee injuries, they addressed the symptoms.

They worked on a new way of walking and running.

The intent was to take pressure off Lang’s right knee, which sustained serious ligament damage twice (in 2005 and 2009) and led to her retirement on Jan. 5, 2011.

It was a completely different rehab from her previous two rehabilitation attempts.

Hours were spent with Scott Livingston, a conditioning coach and athletic therapist with B2ten. She also trained in Toronto with Matt Nichol, who works with many professional hockey players.

She said her running style and stance had contributed to her injuries in the first place, so how she used her hips and her spine formed a key part of the analysis.

Her knee was absorbing too much impact from the rest of her body.

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“Instead of addressing the injury itself, they addressed the causes of it,” Lang said. “They went back to basics and evaluated the movement patterns and habits that make you susceptible to injury.”

Then, she had to learn how to break those habits — habits learned over her lifetime.

However, she didn’t realize how isolating the comeback would be. She was away from her teammates and her boyfriend, Blue Jays pitcher Ricky Romero.

“The mental and emotional challenges were more difficult than I expected,” Lang said. “I don’t think I fully understood the toll it would take emotionally and mentally. Training on my own was difficult.”

Every day she was poked and prodded and told to do things that weren’t her strength.

However, she also said Romero “has been incredibly supportive from the beginning.”

They met two years ago and now live together in Los Angeles.

“He knows what it’s like,” she said. “He lives on the road too.”

Lang, who worked as a television analyst for the 2011 Women’s World Cup, put her broadcast career on hold to make a comeback.

However, the five-foot-eight striker doesn’t feel as though she has lost a step.

In fact, she hopes her training has allowed her to run more efficiently and therefore become quicker and more agile.

Right now, it’s baby steps.

“I have a lot of learning to do and a lot to catch up on as far as tactics and philosophy,” she said. “I’m just trying to take advantage of the opportunity to be in the environment and absorb as much as I can, even if I’m not on the field.”

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