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Real Salt Lake coach Jeff Cassar took a look at his star midfielder's feet, and offered his professional opinion.

"His feet are really messed up," Cassar said after examining RSL captain Kyle Beckerman's wheels. "They just look nasty."

Salt Lake believes Beckerman's foot issues will be a short-term problem, but they're serious enough to keep him out of Wednesday night's All-Star Game.

Beckerman opted to skip his eighth straight All-Star game and a chance to rematch with a handful of German national team stars when Major League Soccer's best take on Bayern Munich in Portland, Ore.

Beckerman got a chance to see many of them first-hand earlier this summer, when the U.S. faced off against Germany in the World Cup. That is just another reason why RSL officials want to be cautious.

"We have to be really mindful of Kyle's body, especially going all the way back to Brazil," Cassar said. "We have to rest him whenever we can."

Beckerman was at RSL's training field on Tuesday morning. The midfielder had been fitted for some orthotics and participated in drills momentarily in an effort to get comfortable with the fitting.

Lessons learned

Center back Chris Schuler was held out of training Tuesday while he deals with soreness in his foot. The defender has had a history of foot injuries that have cost him large stretches of the past two seasons, and Cassar said the team is trying to prevent another problem.

"He's somebody we have to keep the lines of communication open with," the coach said.

"His foot was a little sore. It wasn't recovering quite the way we wanted it to or thought it would. So we're going to have to maybe give him an extra few days off so we don't make the same mistakes we made in years past."

Help wanted

RSL was left looking for an assistant coach earlier this week, when Paul Dalglish announced he was leaving the team after eight months to lead the Austin Aztecs of the United Soccer League.

On Tuesday, Cassar said a replacement should be announced soon.

"It's not ideal," he said of Dalglish leaving. "But I have a person in mind. I think it's getting close to being done. He's a fantastic man who I'm very close with, who I think will bring a lot to the staff and help out our forwards as well." —

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