As of today, only two players from the current Barça squad have come out “immune” from the plague of injuries. Curiously, these are two signings this summer: Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie De Jong. Both have been available in all the calls, although the technicians decided on some occasion to leave them off the list. Only the Frenchman gave the scare during the preseason after suffering a heavy blow to the ankle, but he recovered without further setback. Now they have been joined by a third player, the Danish Martin Braithwaite, although it is obviously still too early to declare him in the same ‘status’ as the other two, since he has only been in Barcelona for a month.
Injuries are being one of FC Barcelona's big headaches this season. Up to 16 players have gone through the situation of having to stop for a while due to injury or illness. Some as serious as Ousmane Dembélé, who has said goodbye to the season after suffering a rupture of the femoral biceps tendon in his right leg, which was operated on in Finland. Others, like Luis Suárez and Neto, also went through the operating room to overcome their problems. In fact, the Uruguayan striker continues with his recovery process, which is expected to be in late April.
Others have not undergone surgery, but have been on leave for several months, such as the case of Arthur Melo, due to pubalgia, Leo Messi, due to a break in the soleus of the right leg or Jordi Alba, due to a rupture in the femoral biceps of the left leg. In these last two cases, the recovery took longer than expected due to relapses.
Not even the youngest have been spared from the infirmary: Ansu Fati has had to stop for several phases of the season due to discomfort in the patellar tendon of his right knee because of being in full growth phase yet.
And others it was not an injury that has prevented him from playing a game. This is the case of Sergio Busquets, who suffered an indisposition in the hours before the Classic at the Camp Nou on December 18, having to jump out of the lineup at the last minute.
And evidently in this list there is no shortage of the usual ones in the infirmary. Samuel Umtiti is the clearest example as he is a regular at the gym due to his battered right knee, which forces him to make several-week breaks throughout the course. Lately, goalkeeper Marc André Ter Stegen has also had to do a two-week hiatus for tendinopathy of his right knee, It is not ruled out that it will force you to undergo surgery this summer if it does not improve.
Even players who have hitherto been touched by a magic wand like Croatian Ivan Rakitic, who hasn't missed a game since he signed in 2004, have had some sort of muscle blunder. In the case of the midfielder: discomfort in the Achilles tendon of the left leg.