In the final five minutes of the University of Wisconsin's nail-biting loss to the Washington Huskies Friday night, Victor Diaz was tripped by a Washington defender, flipped over hard, and was left facedown on the turf.

Diaz was motionless for a moment, and then slowly tried to turn over. It was obvious that he was not going to get up on his own, and the Badger training staff rushed to the end of the field, where Diaz still lay on the ground.

After a few minutes of examination, the coaching staff helped Diaz to his feet and examined his shoulder. One of the trainers was heard to say, "It's probably a sprain, but it's going to hurt bad."

Diaz sat out Sunday's game against Creighton, in which Wisconsin lost 0-1 in overtime. On Monday, UW head coach Jeff Rohrman was asked about the effect of Diaz's absence. "It didn't help our attacking game much, but we certainly have some guys who can fill in, and I'm sure that they can do some pretty good things. So even without Victor, we can still field a pretty good team.

"But on Sunday, I thought that we should have been a little bit more dangerous in the final third, but for whatever reason we didn't create a whole lot of opportunities," Rohrman continued. "We had a couple of half-chances, but nothing we created was really of extreme danger," Rohrman said.

Diaz went in for X-rays Monday night. He said beforehand that he was in a lot of pain, but hoped to be back in the game on Sunday.

"My shoulder hurts really bad, but at least it got a little bit better since Friday night. Today, I'm going to get X-rays, so we'll see," Diaz said. "Yesterday, the doctor told me that it might take four or five weeks to heal completely, but if it feels OK, I'm going to try to play Sunday."

Diaz's X-rays revealed that his shoulder is not broken. "The doctor told me that whenever I can tolerate the pain, I'll be able to play," said Diaz, who added that his shoulder was separated. "But I have to be careful landing on my shoulder again."

"If it's ligaments, and it's a sprain or a strain, certainly our medical staff is going to work on him through the week to try to get him back for Sunday," Rohrman added. "It's kind of nice that we have the whole week off to nurse a couple of injuries."

Rohrman said that the team will take caution in the decision to play him against Big Ten foe Michigan at the McClimon Soccer Complex on Sunday. If Diaz is in the lineup, healthy or not, the Wolverines will need to pay special attention to the Badgers' star player.

"I think there are some things we can do in case he falls on it or gets bumped. The hard part is you can't really hide Victor," laughed Rohrman. "You know, he's going to demand attention, wherever he is on the field, because of the player he is. So we've just got to ask him to try to avoid some of those things. And we'll do our part as far as protecting him too — whether it be some padding or a brace of some sort."