Mouctar Diakhaby is going through the most difficult time of his career, and he still doesn’t have a date to leave it. At the 2-2 draw between Valencia and Real Madridthe host team’s defender suffered a dislocation in his right knee after midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni fell backwards onto his leg, in a completely involuntary move, in La Liga.
It is still difficult to know the recovery time of the 27-year-old defender of the Valencia, but it will certainly be long. And during this time, the player’s treatment could be ‘inspired’ by a move that happened in last year’s Copa Libertadores.
Similar injury in the 2023 Libertadores
During the first game of the round of 16, Marcelo received a straight red card for stamping, also in an accident at work, on full-back Luciano Sánchez, from Argentinos Juniors. As with Diakhaby, the Argentine player also had his knee dislocated, in August 2023, in the match against Fluminense.
Seven months have passed, and Sánchez remains in the recovery process, but is still hopeful. In total, he had to wait around four months to have two operations. In the first, days after the match, it was necessary to reconstruct the ligament and repair the fibula nerve. The second was carried out on November 30, on the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments of Sánchez’s leg, which is currently recovering.
– I am fine. It’s been a few months since my last operation, which was on the cruciate ligaments. As everything couldn’t be done in the same surgery, I knew there would be two. It is speculated that between 6 and 8 months is the time needed to recover from this operation. I have faith that after the second semester, I will be back – he told local media outlets.
The player, who was recently seen at an Argentinos Juniors game, now has a huge scar on the side of his knee. He said that despite the slow steps, he remains hopeful that he will be able to play football again.
– We are returning to normal. I’m already driving and starting to walk. I want to do many other things again and I’m happy about that. Little by little we find joy in each small daily step without thinking so much about the future, but rather about day to day life.
Doctor warns of possible forced retirement
And despite Sánchez’s daily hope, this is a great example of the severity of the injury suffered by both him and Diakhaby. And in Spain, there is talk about the possibility of the defender having to leave the field.
– First, the patient needs to be able to walk again. This is a very serious injury and, therefore, he is at serious risk of not being able to play football again. This injury damages the cartilage, which is a structure that does not regenerate – said doctor Juan José López Martínez, in an interview with the Estadio Deportivo newspaper, in Valencia. He works with tennis player Carlos Alcaraz, number 2 in the ATP rankings at the moment.
Sánchez hasn’t played football for months, and it’s still unknown what his return will be like, but it’s great to know that little by little the Argentine is recovering. Just like his, Diakhaby’s path in the coming months will not be easy, and there is still no perfect diagnosis of the recovery time for the Guinean defender. But not losing hope is the first step to facing not only the surgery, but also the long physiotherapy sessions to perhaps return to the Mestalla field as a player.