Ter Stegen He said goodbye to the season. Barcelona confirmed that the goalkeeper was suffering from a complete rupture of the patellar tendon of the right knee and will have to undergo surgery. OKDIARIO contacted the doctor Vicente de la Vargadirector of the Advanced Center for Sports Medicine (CAMDE), to find out what the goalkeeper’s injury looks like, when he could return to competition and if he could do so at the highest level.
Germany’s starting goalkeeper He was injured last Sunday after a bad jump in the last minute of the first half against Villarreal.. Ter Stegen jumped for a ball centered at the far post and, when he fell, he landed badly and injured his knee. Players from both teams immediately called for help when they saw the gestures of pain from the Barça goalkeeper, who was crying on the ground.
Dr. De la Varga assured that “this could happen at any time, and it did,” because “This tendon has a long history of chronic tendinopathy, persistent degeneration“, which has already intervened twice, in 2021 and 2022”, which have allowed the goalkeeper to play so far. The first thing you need to know is that “the patellar tendon is a fundamental anatomical structure of the knee, as it is the only system we have to extend the leg.”
“A healthy tendon is very strong, impossible to break unless it is degenerated. “Continuous overload in the form of running and jumping causes progressive wear of the fibers that compose it, accumulating waste, leading to tendinosis.”Ter Stegen’s tendinosis This is not usual, It is a special type called hypervascular” he explains.
“In this one, on a tendon which generally has neither vessels nor nerves, a invasion of vessels and nerves by adjacent fatHoffa is fat, in an attempt to regenerate the tendonbut obtaining the opposite effect, perpetuating the degeneration and increasing the pain”, comments the doctor, who recalls that the second surgical intervention in 2021 was carried out precisely “to correct this hypervascularization, but often, even to relieve the pain, it is not possible to regenerate the tendon and “this leaves us more weakened”.
This is Ter Stegen’s operation
As Vicente De la Varga says, it seemed essential to perform the operation as soon as possible, “so that the tendon does not lose its vitality.” “Now “The first thing is to rebuild the tendon.”insists the director of CAMDE. Regarding Ter Stegen’s operation, the doctor analyzes what this operation will be like and its difficulty, which “will lie in the thickness of the tendon and to what extent it is degenerated.”
“Generally consists of anchoring the ruptured tendon directly to the lower pole of the patella using harpoons and a system to release the tension generated by the quadriceps. The difficulty of the intervention will lie in the thickness of the tendon and its degree of degeneration. In Ter Stegen’s case, it is a thin tendon.refined by previous surgeries, and also very degenerated by tendinosis that has lasted for more than 5 years,” he says.
The doctor adds that the reconstruction of the tendon is less strong and this requires more protection and increases the probability that it will break again: “A tendon with these characteristics makes the reconstruction less solidand that, therefore, it must be protected for longer and is more likely to break again“.
Injury recovery time
The big unknown now is how long the goalkeeper will be out. Barça fans want to know how long they will be without their best goalkeeper, something that even the club itself does not specify in the medical report. Vicente de la Varga recalls that Ronaldo Nazario suffered the same injury during his time at Inter and reveals that “I estimate that the return to competition period will be between 12 and 15 months.“.
According to the CAMDE director, Ter Stegen would not compete again until the beginning of the following season.Ronaldo Nazario had a similar break when he was at Inter, and it took him a year and a half to come back to the playing fields. Upon his return from injury, he won the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan and signed for Madrid, winning the league, being top scorer and winning the Ballon d’Or in 2002,” he says.
“What happened with Ronaldo reflects very well what can happen with a ruptured patellar tendon. It is a very rare but very serious injury. With very long recovery times and a high percentage of players who do not recover“It is more serious than in cases of cruciate ligament or Achilles tendon ruptures,” explains Dr. De la Varga, who sends a message of hope to the Blaugranas: “But it has been proven that those who manage to recover do not usually have problems returning to the level of play before the breakage.
However, the goalkeeper’s age and the injuries previously suffered in the same area do not facilitate his recovery: “The a history of patellar tendon injuries and his age of 32 count against him“, he concludes.
