It seems that the recovery of 2010 MLS MVP David Ferreira has landed in yet another sizeable pothole for FC Dallas. “El Torito” has yet to see the field this regular season after suffering an Achilles' injury late in preseason.

Ferreira wasn’t on the training field on Wednesday morning in Frisco, and for good reason, according to Dallas gaffer Schellas Hyndman.

“We’ve worked really hard with David trying to get him back. He did so well in Orlando but he took a lot of hits, behind the Achilles, the heel area. FC Dallas, our trainers and our rehab people have really worked hard trying to get him back and there seems to be something that’s not right. I don’t know what that is. He’s not responding the way we thought he would respond,” Hyndman said. “So what we did today [Wednesday] was for safety purposes we’ve taken him back to the doctor, doing more X-rays, more MRIs to the doctor to did the surgery to see if there’s anything we might be missing.”

So, now that the talented Colombian has suffered yet another setback on his long road to recovery, one has to wonder whether his biggest hurdle is mental, physical or both?

“I think it’s probably both,” Hyndman said. “He wants to help the team so badly. He feels like he’s got to get healthy. Part of the mental phase is to find out for sure what is the physical phase?”

And it’s only human nature that as we approach the one-year anniversary of his last significant minutes in a Dallas shirt that everyone has to wonder if the frustration level of the ex-MVP is now at an all-time high.

“I think the frustration is mounting but it’s not out of our attention. We’re talking with him. We’re counseling him the best we can, trying to keep him on as high a note as we possibly can,” Hyndman said. “We’re all taking a special interest in trying to comfort him as much as we can.”

But with this latest setback, is it reasonable to wonder if Ferreira will return at some point this season or maybe even at all? That’s definitely a worst case scenario for FCD but with March almost over and it not looking like he’ll return anytime soon, maybe it’s time to start considering what many thought was unthinkable, that this might be more of a long-term thing than anyone had ever thought.