Your personal Tumblr journey starts here
Just want to offer a little perspective against all the people fear-mongering about Gavi’s injury being “career ending”.
Florian Wirtz is the most obvious example of a recovery from a full ACL tear at a young age. He was 18 when it happened about a year ago and has come back without missing a beat. If people haven’t watched him they should, he’s really fantastic.
Within Barcelona both Xavi and Gundogan had ACL tears and have come back just as good if not better. Gundogan said himself that he may not be the same player after, but it doesn’t mean he’s worse, just different.
Two more players who suffered ACL tears very young are Darwin Nuñez (17) and Moises Caicedo (16) who have now gone on to play professionally in the Premier League and are doing very well currently. (Darwin’s habit of missing sitters has nothing to do with it).
Other examples of players include Leroy Sané and Virgil van Dijk who while taking a bit of time to come back to form are now doing very well again. Medical experts have claimed that it can take up to 2 years to get back to your level after an ACL injury due to mental blocks, so immediate form should not be seen as “the best you can be”. While of course we all want Gavi to come back better than ever straight away we must be patient and realise that he has an incredibly long career ahead of him and may not hit his prime till the later years regardless of the injury.
Players in the past who have gone on to have incredible careers following ACL tears include Alan Shearer (became the premier league top scorer) and Roberto Baggio. Baggio not only ruptured his ACL but also tore his meniscus yet went on to win a Ballon D’or. While Gavi has also got an “associated injury” with his lateral meniscus, that’s actually fairly routine with an ACL and nowhere did Barcelona say he had actually torn it.
There are many more examples both older e.g. Francesco Totti and more recent e.g. Federico Chiesa who have returned to form following their ACL injury.
Beyond the world of football many other athletes have also made a complete recovery and gone on to have incredible careers e.g. in the NBA.
While it’s completely valid to be very upset over the injury because the recovery is very painful, he’s so young, and he may return a different player, there is no need to despair. He will have top medical professionals at his side, be surrounded by others who know how to recover from injury, and the treatments and recovery chances have come on leaps and bounds since the likes of Shearer and even Xavi.
While there is a higher risk of re-injuring the ACL or having compensatory injuries, if the recovery is not rushed there is every chance he will be physically the same in most if not all departments. The areas most likely to be affected are explosiveness, speed and quick turns, but the first two Gavi has never particularly relied on and he can always adapt to the third. But in the cases of Wirtz and Sane they are still very agile, nimble players, while Xavi adapted to rely more on his tactical prowess, but either way have been successful.
The other aspect is mental such as a fear of re-injury. While we cannot say for sure that Gavi will not have this problem as he has never experienced an injury of the likes of this before, we have every reason to assume not. His teammates and coaches both in Barcelona and on the national team have always spoken of his mentality and fight, and that will prove particularly important now. Also, we are talking about the same kid who was sidelined age 11 because of a broken nose and immediately after his return threw himself into headers again. He has always shown he is not scared of pain and won’t let it hold him back, so he will hopefully apply this same mentality to what will surely be a difficult recovery.
Ultimately we will not know until after the surgery and even until he’s back or several years later how the injury will affect him. But he will be back and there’s every reason to believe he will make a full recovery or become a different but just as good player. We may even get to see more of the impeccable technique that he showcased in La Masia rather than being used partly as a workhorse as he has previously.
While the number of ACL injuries this season is completely horrible, it means Gavi is not the only one going through this journey. And to those on twitter and elsewhere trying to convince you that he won’t have a career after this, I doubt they think the same of Militao, Courtois, Mings, Pino and etc.
Sorry for the essay but we must not give up on Gavi and instead must support him and the team through this surely horrible time. This too shall pass and while we will miss him the time will pass by quicker than you expect.
First of all, thank you so much for this ❤️ reading it this morning genuinely made me feel so much better and I hope everyone here takes the time to read it, I promise it'll help you guys worry less.
Reading this and finding out about all these success stories after ACL injuries gave me much more hope. If so many others were able to overcome it then best believe our little warrior is very likely to do the same I have no doubt about it. Also, it's a relief to know that it mainly affects speed and explosiveness because Gavi has other strengths. And maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing for him to focus on technical abilities that we all know he excels at but the way coaches utilised him up until this point hindered their development. The thing about Gavi is that he excels at so many things so even if his injury affects one two or two aspects of his game he'd still have so many other qualities he's just that good. The main obstacle of this injury is the mental toll it could have on him but I have faith in his own strength and the incredible amount of love he's surrounded by to get him through it. Obviously he'll feel down for a while and is probably still in shock (hell even I still can't believe it I literally expect him to show up in barças training stories and then it hits me again) it's not easy but time heals everything and knowing him he'd do anything to get back to what he loves as soon as possible. He's a fighter, he's always been that way an injury no matter how serious wouldn't take that away from him. He'll be back. It might take a while for him to get back to his absolute best but he'll be back. He has all the time in the world, he's only 19. Now we just need him to take all the time he needs to recover completely and not rush anything.