GAVI INJURY | The very serious injury that leaves Barça without Gavi: What has been broken? When will he return? Why was it squeezed?

“A complete tear of the anterior cruciate ligament of the right knee.” That’s what Gavi has. One of the worst injuries a footballer can have. If it is at the beginning of his sporting career, everything becomes even more complicated. He creaked in Valladolid, although just before he had already emitted some signs of concern. “He also has an injury associated with the external meniscus,” the club added in its medical statement.

The Andalusian suffered a blow during the duel against Georgia (m 19 and 42 seconds). Was Lochoshvili, the Cremonese center back, who brought him down. Gavi was examined by the team’s doctors, who then decided to authorize his return to the field. Three minutes later (m. 22 and 27 seconds) He made a jump for a useless ball since the midfielder was offside, although he did not know it. It was then that his knee broke permanently, leaving him out of control.

“The first action has nothing to do with the second,” argued Luis de la Fuente, the Spanish coach. There are, however, some medical opinions that consider that it was in the first blow where it broke.

The team’s doctors did not issue any medical reports. They only specified that it was “a major injury”, although they did not give more details. “It was when he stepped. He stepped wrong and his knee went,” revealed the Riojan coach.

He stepped wrong and everything creaked. Rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament and associated injury to the meniscus. He will be operated on in the next few days. The last doctor to operate on a Barça player for a knee injury was Ramon Cugat, who operated on Ansu Fati. Joan Carles Monllau operated on Alexia Putellas’ torn cruciate ligaments in her knee (summer 2022).

At least, between seven or eight months off. That in the best case. There are protocols, however, in American sports that indicate that an injury of these characteristics – rupture of the cruciate ligament of the knee – requires at least a year for recovery to be total and complete.

It is a ligament that plays an essential role in the stability of the knee, as doctors always remember. The saturation of the calendar has increased these types of serious injuries. There have already been 16 cruciate fractures in this calendar year of 2023, as revealed by Dr. Pedro Ripoll on Cadena SER.

The problem is aggravated because in these first three months of the League because up to eight players have suffered this serious mishap. “It was an accident, it’s the uncontrollable risks of football,” De la Fuente explained. Risks that now, with so much game accumulated in the legs of young people who have not yet completed their physical training, have skyrocketed.

Gavi It was the last one. Before it happened to Yeremi Pino (Villarreal, November 16); Sedlar (Alavés, November 6) and Arambarri (Getafe, October 23). In the summer, coinciding with the start of the season, four more players already suffered this serious injury: Silva (Royal Society, July 20), Joel Roca (Girona, August 9), Courtois and Military (Madrid, August 10 and 13).

Gavi has played almost everything with Barça. He has played 15 of the 17 matches this season, conditioned, furthermore, because Xavi has not been able to use Pedri either because he was suffering from a muscle injury. The Canarian midfielder was out for more than two months. Also coupled with the fact that De Jong was also injured. And another two months off.

The two matches without Gavi (Shakthar and Alavés in Montjuïc) It was because he was sanctioned. With Spain, the use of Gavi has been total. He had played 27 consecutive games since he debuted with Luis Enrique: 23 as a starter and four coming off the bench.

He had played until he broke down in Valladolid 76% of possible minutes with Barça. But this percentage, already high, increased even more with the Spanish team reaching 87%.

“I had to stop him, he always wanted to play. He is hyperactive,” recalled Luis de la Fuente, the Spanish coach, hours before facing Georgia, emphasizing that “good players never rest, that is why they are good and special.”

Not only did the Riojan coach say that. De la Fuente even went so far as to describe Gavi as “physically gifted.” Hours later, the Andalusian suffered a serious injury, the first of his career. After having played 21 of the 23 official matches this season.

The club is outraged with the management that the team has done with Gavi, who was not given a rest by De la Fuente with the passport for the next European Championship in Germany already guaranteed. The Andalusian was, along with Le Normand, the only starter who repeated in the two matches of this window, separated by only 72 hours.

Gavi completed the 90 minutes against Cyprus and could only be 26 minutes in Valladolid after suffering that serious injury that made him leave the pitch crying. Crying with grief because he had broken. “Message to Barça? We feel it in our souls, we are broken. We feel the same as them,” said the coach, who said he “understands everything,” including Barça’s discomfort.

The club feels outraged because with Pedri they already experienced something like thisWhen he was squeezed in such a way in his first year in the elite that he has had two consecutive years plagued by muscle injuries. It was De la Fuente himself who made Lamine Yamal travel in the previous October selection window to Madrid even though he was injured. He arrived, was examined by doctors and returned to Barcelona.

The scenario is very complicated for the Barça coach. He loses the midfielder he had used the most this season. The coach loses the player who gave a different dimension to his game, capable of acting as a false left winger – with the Barça team of four midfielders he dominated and won the last League – and, in addition, of acting from the origin of the play together with Gundogan upon seeing the decline in the performance of Oriol Romeu, the only pure midfielder in the squad.

Without Gavi, Xavi will have to reformulate his offensive and, at the same time, defensive structure because he is left without an extremely useful piece, which also gives character and intensity to Barça’s game. Virtues that Gavi radiated and, above all, spread.

It remains to be seen whether the club modifies the roadmap it had for the next winter market. The objective was to enroll, if salary fair play allowed, Vitor Roque, the young Brazilian forward that Xavi needs to give Lewandowski a rest. At the same time, the Brazilian rookie ‘nine’ coexists and learns the trade with the Polish expert.

Barça has one free chip left, they could sign another midfielder to alleviate the serious absence of Gavi. It’s Xavi’s turn, if the strict salary regulations allow it, deciding where to invest the little money the club has or whether to bet on bringing in some young talent from the house, like Marc Casadó.

He could sign another player and with a salary, that is, at most, 80% of the salary that Gavi receives. He could arrive from another team on loan or be a footballer without a team who signs until June.