player suffered injury to the medial collateral ligament of his right knee

After an image examination, Fluminense confirmed, on Friday afternoon, that midfielder André suffered an injury to the medial collateral ligament of his right knee. The midfielder was replaced at the end of the first half in the match against Cerro Porteño, in the Libertadores, and left the pitch crying. After the game, the player was seen walking with the help of crutches.

The club did not inform the player’s recovery period. However, GLOBO spoke with Felipe Mazlac, specialist orthopedist at CBV (Brazilian Volleyball Confederation), about the standard recovery time for this type of injury in athletes:

– Injury to the medial collateral, the first thing you have to do is rule out associated injuries. You have to rule out meniscus injuries, cartilage injuries, even central pivot injuries, which are anterior and posterior cruciate injuries. Ruling this out and it being an isolated medial collateral injury, you will classify this injury. Basically, there are three types of injury, types one, two and three. The most common is type one, the least common, but not very rare, is type two. Type three injury, which is a complete rupture, is usually associated with a knee dislocation. Isolated type one injury varies from patient to patient, but recovery takes three to four weeks in a normal patient. The patient who receives full daily physiotherapy support, two to three sessions, can shorten it a little, up to two weeks. I don’t believe it’s anything less than that. The most important thing is that you carry out daily assessments of the athlete, testing, evaluating and treating them. But less than two weeks is very difficult – highlighted Felipe.

Interestingly, André suffered a similar injury to Alexsander. The midfielder, in May 2022, during the game between Cruzeiro and Fluminense, also suffered an injury to the medial collateral ligament in his knee, and at that time, he would be out for treatment for a month. He would stay, because close to returning, Alexsander suffered another injury, to his left thigh, and spent another three months recovering.

Another recent case of a medial collateral ligament injury happened to Vasco player Dimitri Payet. The French midfielder felt the injury during Cruzmaltino’s training period before their debut in the Brazilian Championship, in early April. The player is close to returning to the field, but was absent from the first three rounds of the Brasileirão.

Without André, Fluminense is in São Paulo for the duel with Corinthians, next Sunday, in the fourth round of the Brazilian Championship, at 4pm (Brasília time), at NeoQuímica Arena.