Football Special Edition: Most horrific injuries in football Part 1
It’s sad but it cannot be denied that injuries and football go hand in hand. In the recent past we have seen some of the most horrific injuries occurring to various players on the pitch. The most recent of such unfortunate scene occurred at the weekend when
Manchester United’s Antonio Valencia went down to what looked like an innocuous challenge but only today the scans revealed that the Ecuadorian has dislocated his ankle and also has a fractured bone in his right ankle along with a ligament tear.
Valencia is now set to miss almost the entire season now. Numerous injuries have occurred in the past and here is a list of some of the most horrific injuries suffered by players on the pitch.
Alan Smith - Manchester United, February 18, 2006
At the time of occurrence Alex Ferguson described the injury as the worst the Scot had ever seen in his life, Smith suffered multiple fractures in his left leg along with dislocating his ankle when he landed awkwardly, while trying to block a free kick from
John Arne Risse.
Given the severity of the injury the former Leeds midfielder was given a highly unlikely standing ovation off the pitch by the crowd at Anfield.
Kieron Dyer - West Ham, August 18, 2007
Kieron Dyer is no stranger to a doctor’s knife but the most serious injury of his playing career occurred in August, three years ago.
Apart from providing evidence that is legs may actually be made of glass, the super injury-prone midfielder, who had just joined the East London outfit three weeks earlier, broke his right leg in more than two places after what can only be termed as a nasty
rather a malicious tackle from Joe Jacobson.
Djibril Cisse - Liverpool, October 30, 2004
Horrific injuries have become as big a trademark for the French forward, as his fancy hairstyles.
The injury was nerve-wrecking to watch let alone suffer. Cisse broke his leg while playing for Liverpool, when he awkwardly fell and fractured both his tibia and the fibula. The injury did not result from any tackle but it was just the awkward fall, as his
studs were caught in the turf at E-wood park.
Cisse made a full recovery but Liverpool did not have enough faith in the striker, and sold him off.
Aaron Ramsey - Arsenal, February 27, 2010
Had it not been for the horrific injury the teen prodigy suffered against Stoke on that fateful day, Ramsey would have been Arsenal’s knight in the shining armour for the seasons to come. Ramsey was becoming an integral part of Arsenal’s injury ravaged midfield
but on February 27th Ramsey went down under an overzealous tackle from Ryan Shawcross and broke both his fibula and tibia.
Eduardo - Arsenal, September 23, 2008
Perhaps the most horrific of all injuries on the playing field happened to Arsenal’s Eduardo when he suffered a terrible leg break, following a tackle by Birmingham’s Martin Taylor. Not only did he break his fibula, he dislocated his left ankle as well,
to an extent that his ankle could be seen dangling from the leg. It appeared that had it not been for the socks and boots he was wearing, his foot would fall off.
Eduardo went on to make a full recovery, but he was only a shadow of his previous self after coming off from the injury, and could never make the same impact as a player as he used to have before the injury.
Eduardo was given a chance to prove himself for a season before finally being shipped off to Olympiakos in the summer of 2010.
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