Metatarsal fracture, ACL damage, LCL tear? What do football injuries mean?
A simple introduction for the serious fan
Kevin de Bruyne recently became a high profile casualty of a knee injury. Injuries happen in football. Indeed, certain types of injuries often bask in the reflected glow of the glorious athletes who get them.
But what do these terms and acronyms stand for? What do they mean? Where do they happen? I look at some popular injuries from a (very simplistic) anatomical perspective.
Knee Injuries
Francesco Totti and van Nistelrooy are among a number of high profile players whose knee injuries made headlines. Perhaps these injuries are so well known in football that now even specific acronyms like ACL, LCL etc. usually suffice.
But what is the ACL? Where is it? What does it do?
The above diagram shows the knee. For context, Femur is the thigh bone, Patella the knee cap, Fibula the calf bone and Tibia the shin bone.
The Anterior and Posterior pairing of cruciate ligaments stabilize the (knee) joint while allowing a large range of motion. The Lateral Collateral Ligament (LCL — of Kevin de Bruyne fame) is situated on the outer side of the knee and helps stabilize the knee joint. A ligament is a connective tissue that connects a bone to another bone.
Sometimes the meniscus can also be damaged, as it did for Ibrahamovic. A meniscus is a piece of cartilage in the knee that provides cushion between the thigh bone and the shin bone. Cartilage is padding that protects ends of long bones at the joints.
The knee joins the thigh with the leg and is the largest joint in the human body. It is a critically important part of the human anatomy and plays an essential role in movement. An injury here will not be very funny at all.
Ankle Injury
The ankle is where the leg meets the foot.
Ankle injury counts two all time greats within its casualty list — Gabriel Batistuta and Marco van Basten. While exact details are scarce, and perhaps the preserve of medical journals, at a high level, injuries cover the usual moving parts — ligament (sprain), bone (fracture) or cartilage damage.
It can also involve the Achilles tendon, as in the case of Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla. A tendon connects a bone to muscle. The Achilles tendon connects the calf muscle to the heel.
For sportspeople, knees and ankles are some of the most vulnerable parts of the body. When an ankle injury can cut short the career of an all-time great striker (van Basten), its devastating impact is visible for all to see.
Foot injury
Our journey through the injury landscape comes to its final step (no pun intended) — at the foot.
When David Beckham, fractured the second metatarsal of his left foot, that injury became synonymous with the great player himself.
Metatarsals are the five long bones situated between the hind/mid foot and toes. A fracture, as we know is a damage to a bone. Metatarsals may seem rather slender on first observation but in Beckham’s case, that fracture had a healing time of 6–8 weeks. When the left foot takes the full weight of unleashing shots over 150 km/h (with his right foot), that injury gains spectacular perspective.
The human body is dizzily complex, where different moving parts and connectors come together to produce motion — the foundation of football. By understanding basic anatomy, we can get an idea of what actually happens when footballers injure a knee, ankle or foot.
