What Injury are You Willing to Sustain?

Football injuries may dissuade the weak of heart (or body) from sliding, heading or tackling in a game, but true footballers would rather sacrifice their own bodies than allow their opponents to score.

Most football players experience injuries to their lower extremities; ranging from the pelvis and hip down to the ankle and toe. Over one third of players suffer from an injury due to overuse, including muscle strain or damage. These football injuries require lengthy rehabilitation programs and a great deal of rest before the player is back to his or her old self.

Although overuse is a concern for footballers, the vast majority of these injuries stem from some sort of trauma either with the ball, the ground, or with another player. Some fans think that these collisions are a very exciting part of the game, whilst others maintain that they’re a gruesome by-product.

Football fans will remember the 1996 collision that occurred two minutes into the match between Coventry City’s David Busst and Manchester United’s Denis Irwin and Brian McClair, which occurred as the three rushed after a loose ball. Busst’s career came to a screeching halt as he suffered multiple fractures to his right leg as the bones visibly burst out of his sock. Man U’s keeper on the pitch, Peter Schmeichel underwent counselling as a result of witnessing this awful injury.

Juan Arango suffered an injury different to Busst; he was nearly killed as he collided with Sevilla’s Javi Navarro. Navarro smashed his elbow into Arango’s face as they collided at full speed. The reslt was horrific: Arango broke his cheekbone and swallowed his tongue. His near-death experience on the pitch was evaded as quick-thinking footballers turned him on his side and prevented the fatal ending of a football injury.

Ewald Lienen put on perhaps the most shocking display after suffering a 30 cm gaping wound in his right thigh, which by the way exposed his muscle. Instead of lying down and accepting treatment, he ran around the pitch shouting at the ref…and any other player who happened to be in his path!

And who can forget poor Eduardo Da Silva, the Arsenal player who suffered a crippling kick to his shin by Birmingham’s Martin Taylor, resulting in his leg literally snapping the wrong way. Taylor was sent off the pitch, while Eduardo immediately underwent extensive surgery. Eduardo took 10 months to recover from the injury, so graphic that the broadcasting companies didn’t show replays.

If you’re like the general public, these kinds of injuries will put you right of football for a while…or at least until you last meal settles in your stomach. But, if you’re a die-hard footballer, this little taste of famous injuries has left you craving more.