7 footballers who returned from career threatening injuries
Long term injuries are by far the worst nightmares of any professional footballer. Along with the obvious pain and suffering, long-term injuries come with the disappointing prospect of being out of the action for months and the ever so intimidating question of whether one can reach the earlier levels of performances again.
Injuries occur frequently in the beautiful game and some of them have ended careers but, there are players who returned to the game after suffering from some of the worst injuries that can actually happen to a modern day footballer.
Here is a list of seven players who survived the vicious acts of fate and returned to the game.
#1 Djibril Cisse – Leg break
Cisse arrived at Anfield from Auxerre having scored 70 goals in 128 league games for the French side. Rafael Benitez was happy to pay £14 million for Cisse’s services as the Frenchman made a slow but steady start to his Liverpool career. The Reds were away at Ewood park on the 30th of October 2004 and it was Cisse’s 20th competitive game for his new club.
Late in the first half, the Frenchman and Blackburn defender Jay McEveley were in the battle for a fifty-fifty ball. Cisse’s foot somehow got caught in the turf breaking both his tibia and fibula. It was a terrible thing to happen and if it wasn’t for the proper medical attention he received, Cisse’s playing days would have been over. He was out for 7 months and made his return to the pitch as a substitute in the second leg of Liverpool’s champions league tie against Juventus.
In June 2006, France was playing against China in a warm-up match before the FIFA world cup finals and Cisse unbelievably broke his leg for the second time forcing him out of the world cup. However, Cisse never gave up and he played for Marseille, Sunderland, Panathinaikos, Lazio, Queens Park Rangers, Kuban Krasnodar, Bastia and JS Saint-Pierroise after returning from the second long-term injury. He retired in 2014 at the age of 34.