clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Elias Vasquez is having visa trouble, and he's far from the only one

Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports

Elias Vasquez is having trouble getting back from international duty in Guatemala after he's experienced some apparently visa trouble on his return.

That's a problem he's far from alone in experiencing. On June 15, the U.S. Department of State announced that they were suffering from technical problems in its visa systems. That's down to an apparent hardware failure.

Now, I'm obviously not privy to the details of Vasquez's visa, but it's presumably a P-1 visa, and that should allow multiple re-entries during the year. But if there's a problem processing visas, that could affect any number of processes at different consulates, but largely the issuing of visas and processing thereof.

The Department of State doesn't expect the downed system to be online before next week, and in the meantime, they're helping those engaging urgent humanitarian travel as well as adoptions. If we're to guess, professional soccer player will fall well below that on the list, and that's probably good.

Where does that leave Vasquez? He'll get back to the U.S. at some point, certainly, and maybe it'll be soon. But this is one of those situations where it's out of our hands. It's unfortunate, no doubt, but it's temporary.

As for where it leaves Real Salt Lake, in the short-term, they'll be forced to lean on Aaron Maund a bit more than expected. Chris Schuler is an improbable-but-possible option for Sunday's match against SKC, and Jamison Olave is out for a short period with an injury. Justen Glad also looked like he might have suffered a concussion during the match, which could (and, if he did suffer one, should) rule him out for an indeterminate time. That leaves the club with only two fit and available center backs — Maund and Phanuel Kavita, who just made his RSL debut.