Arsenal Training
Arsenal Training
Follow now.arsenal — add us as a preferred source on Google.
Rare stress fractures in unusual areas of the foot leave even experienced specialists without clear precedents. When scans reveal an injury that no one in a network of experts has previously encountered, the recovery timeline becomes uncertain. Players in that position often face the possibility that their career could be affected.
Surgery involving the insertion of screws can provide structural support, yet the decision is made without the reassurance of previous cases. The absence of comparable recoveries means both the medical team and the player must proceed without knowing whether full function will return. Those doubts are difficult to set aside when a major tournament is approaching.
Returning in time to feature in a World Cup final demonstrates that the procedure worked, even if the path was unclear at the outset. Further incidents during the match itself can still create additional concern in the moment. The combination of the earlier injury and the final itself forms a complete account of the challenges faced.
Mikel Merino feared he would have to retire after fracturing his foot last season, according to The Sun. The Arsenal midfielder suffered a stress fracture in January that specialists had not encountered before.
Merino underwent surgery with two screws inserted into his left foot. Speaking to The Players’ Tribune, he said: “The specialist who did the scan had never seen a stress fracture in that part of the foot. He’d been doing this for 30 years. He had called five of the best specialists in the world, and none of them had seen it either.
“Nobody knew how my foot would recover, or if it would recover at all. Part of me feared that I would never play football again. I put all the meat on the barbecue, as we say in Spain. They told me they could drill two screws into my foot to give it support. I was like, vamos, put ’em in.”
The recovery allowed him to make Spain’s World Cup squad. He featured in the final against Argentina and helped the team go all the way. During the match he was struck in the face by a shot from Lionel Messi and finished the game blind in one eye.
Merino described the incident: “I went down like I’d been shot, which I had. I got hit so hard that I was actually blind in one eye for the rest of the match. For a moment, I was really worried. But when the whistle went, I just felt this surge of relief, because we hadn’t messed it up. And then this image appeared in my mind.”
The unusual nature of the foot fracture meant there were no previous examples to guide the rehabilitation. Merino has since returned to action for Arsenal and continues to feature in the squad. The experience of both the injury and the World Cup final has been detailed in his recent account.
Specialists’ unfamiliarity with the fracture created genuine uncertainty at the time. The successful return to competitive football, including the World Cup final, has closed that chapter. Merino’s comments highlight how close the situation felt to a career-ending outcome before the surgery and recovery took effect.