The unfortunate truth about every manager who spends a long time in the game is that they will witness a fair number of serious injuries. Arsene Wenger spent more than two decades with Arsenal, from 1996 to 2018, and had a great time in north London.
Indeed, the Frenchman won three Premier League crowns and seven FA Cups with Arsenal. Unfortunately, his stint with the club seems to be frequently punctuated by shock injuries.
Stars such as Abou Diaby, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, and Tomas Rosicky come to mind as great footballers who could have achieved much more under Wenger if not for their ongoing fitness issues. Eduardo and Aaron Ramsey sustained horrific leg breaks while playing for Arsenal.
Despite these sad former Gunners offering plenty of competition, Wenger recalls one occurrence as the worst injury he has ever witnessed. The unfortunate player was Santi Cazorla.
Santi Cazorla suffered a horrific injury that left him fearing he would never be able to play again or risk losing his leg.
The wonderful part is that it wasn’t even a serious injury to begin with. He sustained a knock in a friendly against Chile in September 2013, which sparked a series of difficulties over the next five years.
In November 2015, the Spaniard fractured a bone in his ankle and injured his knee ligament, and he continued to play in discomfort until his match against Ludogorets in October 2016. The pain was so severe that Cazorla burst into tears and knew he needed surgery, but it was only the beginning of his misery.
His skin had degraded and ripped apart. Infection, then hello. Cazorla told the Guardian, “I picked it up in the operating room, and there was the fact that the wound was open.” I’d work on the bike, and a few stitches would come out. Because there was an open wound, bacteria might enter, allowing another bug to get in.
“A yellow liquid came out at night. Every time they sewed me up, it split again, releasing more liquid. They performed a skin graft, but they couldn’t see what was inside: bacteria eating away, eating away. They never discovered which bacteria it was.
“They told me, ‘Don’t worry about playing football; focus on regaining a normal life, like being able to play with your son or go for a walk.'” But I didn’t pay much attention to it because I’d already decided to go to Spain, where they told me completely different stories.
“I was fatigued after two or three months of surgery. I went to Vitoria the next day, and they discovered the bacteria – two in the tendon and one in the bone.
“They weren’t sure how much of the tendon the bacteria had eaten. Mikel [the surgeon] said, ‘I’m going to have to open you up till I find the tendon.’ They said they’d have to open, open, open, and when they did, they discovered I’d lost 10cm. They told me I was fortunate because it could have been worse. When he tried to reconstruct the tendon, he noticed how terrible the bone was. He could insert his finger into it. It resembled Plasticine. That is considerably more harmful.”
He would eventually have eight procedures, and after suffering gangrene, it was feared that he may never walk again or even lose the damaged leg. Fortunately, this did not occur, but the recuperation procedure necessitated a skin graft from Cazorla’s left forearm, where a tattoo of his daughter’s name had previously appeared.
Wenger claimed in 2017 that the injury was the worst he’d ever seen, emphasising how serious it was with Cazorla still recovering. He explains:
“It’s the worst injury I’ve seen.
“It started with a pain in the achilles and it has gone from worse to worse and I must say I know how much Santi loves to play football and loves to be out there every day and I feel very sorry for what happened to him, because it is unbelievable.”
Cazorla’s future as a player was uncertain at the time. Unable to put them to rest, Wenger responded: “Let’s not talk about that, but I hope you are wrong.”
Cazorla is Still Playing in His 40s
Making up for lost time after 636 days injured
This was in 2017, yet nearly a decade later, Cazorla had surmounted all odds to continue playing. As if making up for lost time from his injuries (which sidelined him for 636 days), the Spaniard has had a fantastic time in the extended twilight of his career.
In 2018, he returned to his former club Villarreal and recorded 10 assists in his first season, the third-most in the league. He subsequently spent three years with Al Sadd in Qatar before returning to his childhood club Real Oviedo in 2023.
He plays for the lowest possible cost, earning the minimum pay of €91,000 every season. Cazorla, who was still excelling for the team in his 40s, had an important role in Oviedo’s promotion to La Liga via the play-offs for the first time in 24 years, scoring in the semi-finals and final.
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