The aftermath of Falcao's injury: What Monaco and Colombia might miss
Falcao posing for the cameras in the hospital
When players suffer long-lasting injuries as they approach what would have been the prime of their career, it can have a damaging effect on the player, his club and his national team. Many never truly recover from these confidence ruining problems and so we never see the levels they could have reached.
Radamel Falcao moved from Atlético Madrid to Monaco in the summer transfer window for a reported £50 million fee. In January he was the victim of an ill-timed challenge which caused a tear of his anterior cruciate ligament. This will almost definitely rebound upon Monaco’s title aspirations and with the World Cup around the corner could be devastating for Colombia.
The assessment of this injury is that it will leave him out for roughly half a year, by which time the season will be over and so will the World Cup. For a player who has been widely regarded as one of the best in world football it will be a serious blow to have a World Cup that he won’t feature in.
Is Falcao really that important for Monaco and his country? In many of his appearances for the French club he has looked lazy, disinterested and not the player that we knew with Atlético. The player who stunned everyone with his power and goalscoring ability seemed to have gone.
Having only scored nine goals in 17 appearances, Falcao’s goal tally has not been what you would expect from a £50 million investment. Compare this to his 34 goals for Atlético over 2012/13 and his current tally looks underwhelming. In nine of his appearances for Monaco before his injury, Falcao failed to find the back of the net. Regardless, he has still scored almost a quarter of his side’s league goals.
Monaco, of course, did not solely have Falcao to rely on. Riviere, James Rodriguez and now Berbatov will all have a burden on their shoulders to fire Monaco to the Ligue 1 title.
The club will still hope for the title, but with PSG having, undeniably, the best forward line in France – featuring both Zlatan Ibrahimovi? and Edinson Cavani, Monaco will need to improve upon their goalscoring without their most valuable asset.
In terms of the Colombian national team, Falcao’s importance to them was huge. He was their highest goalscorer in qualifiers with 15 goals in 23 games, helping them gain qualification to the tournament this year. Even if Falcao does, somehow, manage to recover in time, there is no way he could reach full fitness. We are likely to see Luis Muriel and Jackson Martinez fighting it out to be the main striker with Falcao playing a minor, less significant role.
It is easy to claim that El Tigre is of huge importance for his teams, but truthfully both can do well without him. Monaco have enough firepower and Colombia, although they will be without their best striker, still have a luxury of great attacking options.