Dejan Kulusevski hasn’t kicked a football competitively for more than a year now. His injury was unusual for a number of reasons, but mostly because, instead of tearing his ACL like most normal footballers, he went and fractured his patella, which can be a pernicious and highly complicated injury with a long recovery time.
Deki’s national team doctor in Sweden, Jonas Werner, now has quotes in football.london about his injury, Deki’s World Cup hopes being dashed by the long recovery time, and some
interesting details on what exactly is going on with him.
“It’s been a long story with Dejan. He’s done everything he can to get ready [for the World Cup], but when it came to deciding [if he would make the squad] he wasn’t. The reason is that he hasn’t played football in a year, but even the medical assessments made this spring have pointed in the direction that he wouldn’t be ready.
“Cartilage injuries, like in Dejan’s case, are troublesome. They are difficult to treat. Plus, he has it in a place that gets a lot of stress. The injury simply hasn’t healed enough to handle that stress. I have high hopes for that and I really hope so.”
Wait. Cartilage damage? Does he even have cartilage in his knee anymore? That sounds a lot like what happened to Ledley King, who even after his knee injury was good enough to play but not enough to train. So if that’s the case, it would make Deki, what — Cartilage Free Captain 2.0? Carty Free Midfielder? Should we name him club captain next season just to make it official?
Jokes aside, Deki’s injury is stupidly complicated and he’s clearly not healed enough to get back on the pitch. It’s an open question now as to what happens next — maybe he gets healthy enough by the end of the summer to start training again. That’s the optimistic option. The pessimistic option would be that the knee never fully heals properly and he either is reduced to a late game substitute option, or even that he ends up hanging up his boots for good. I’d hate for that to happen, because I think Deki still has a good 5-8 years of football in him, but who knows.
At any rate, it’s a small comfort to know that his doctor thinks he can yet make a full recovery. It sucks that he still isn’t ready, though. Let’s crowd-fund him a shipment of horse placenta.
