Moving the Goalposts newsletter
I recently returned to the pitch after several months but while out injured I seem to have rediscovered my love for football
Thu 21 Mar 2024 13.15 CET
Last Saturday, I had my first competitive action as a footballer since 14 December. Ninety-three days after fracturing the fifth metatarsal in my left foot, I had the joyful feeling of finally stepping out on to the pitch again in front of our home crowd in Munich. I had expected to be more nervous, but thanks to the girls playing a fantastic game – en route to a 5-0 win over RB Leipzig – I was able to run out there with a good feeling in my body.
I’d like to take you through the process of my recovery from that injury – the most serious I’ve had since fracturing the same bone in my other foot when I was 17. That experience meant that when it happened this time, in our Champions League home game against Ajax, I recognised the feeling straight away. I felt the crack and was able to tell some of the girls what it was even before the physio had got to me.
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The fifth metatarsal is a small bone on the outside of the foot, connected to your little toe. For a “normal” person, it can be left to heal by itself but for footballers it needs surgery because it gets so much pressure with all the changes of direction we do. Thankfully, it was just a crack so the bone was still aligned. The next morning at 10am I was in the operating theatre having a screw inserted to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Looking back I’m not surprised I got a stress fracture of that kind because I’d begun to feel my body was at breaking point. I’d had a range of problems – everywhere, ironically, except my left foot – and had told my partner, Pernille, a couple of weeks earlier I just needed to hang in there until Christmas. After seven weeks at the World Cup, I’d had only a short break before beginning training with my new club. One and a half weeks later we had our first cup game, and two days after it was off to the Nations League. So, it’s no wonder something like this happened.
Whenever a footballer gets injured, everyone immediately asks: “When are you coming back?” It really helped me to stay away from putting a time limit on it. Your coaches and rehab coaches have a target but I never asked them and if I were advising other players, I’d recommend them to just go day by day.
The first days after surgery were mentally tough – you’re lying there with everything hurting, coming to terms with what is ahead. Quite early, I made the decision to trust the process, starting with five weeks with my left foot in a boot. Thankfully, I was still able to go on a planned Christmas trip to Gran Canaria, which meant lying on a sunbed and going for a swim in the mornings. When I came back to Munich, I had two more weeks wearing the boot and doing work in the gym.
At Bayern, when you have a long-term injury you go into a rehab group, which means you don’t work with your team physio but with a specific physio along with a strength and conditioning coach. We practically become a small team within the team and the relationship between us is really nice since we can share our experiences and give one another support.
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When the boot came off after five weeks, everyone was saying: “That’s great.” But I found it tough because you have to start walking again and you feel pain. A normal person doesn’t have to push themselves through that pain; they’ll just keep the boot on for another week or two and stay on their crutches. But for a footballer, the quicker you can walk, the quicker you can run, and the quicker you can get out on the field, the better. So you are constantly on the edge of what pain level is tolerable. First, you have pain from walking and then when that stops you start running and then you have pain again. Each time your load increases, you get pain. That is draining.
One of the toughest moments came when they tried to get me to run and it just didn’t feel right so I had to stop. It was a tiny setback really but at that moment you feel terrible and think it’ll never heal. That was on a Thursday in early February. I said: “No, I don’t want to do this, it hurts.” But I then came back on the Monday and could do it. Up to then, I’d been running on an AlterG anti-gravity treadmill which uses air-pressure technology to take the weight off your feet. So I was jogging, for example, on 20% of my body weight.
From 13 February, I was back outside with the rehab coach. I’d been wearing really good jogging shoes with insoles but I was now worried about squeezing the foot into my narrow football boots again. So for the first day I borrowed a pair two sizes bigger just so it didn’t feel too tight.
After a week of running in a straight line, I had to start doing more dynamic stuff such as sharp turns and changes of direction. After that you move on to sprinting, and then kicking the ball. My left foot is my kicking foot and it’s not the nicest feeling with a screw in there. Even now, if I don’t hit the ball cleanly it hurts, so that’s a big incentive to strike it well!
My first session training with the team was on 2 March but this almost felt like the hardest part because when you’ve not kicked a ball for two and a half months, you’re scared of picking up a muscle injury and you have to come to terms with the fact it will take some time until you’re back to your old self.
Magdalena Eriksson (second left) celebrates a Bayern Munich goal against PSG in November, before suffering the metatarsal injury. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The key thing is to start doing things out of instinct again. For a player coming back after injury or not starting games regularly, you can overthink. When you play games, you’re in the flow and everything comes naturally.
I would like to highlight that each phase of the rehab process is extremely challenging, mentally and physically. It’s hard to find positives to focus on when your wellbeing is pretty much determined by the state your injured body part is in. However, one big positive is I’ve been watching lots of football again. Before the injury, I’d become really tired of football and wasn’t watching many games apart from my own. But now I’m watching the Premier League, the Champions League, the Frauen-Bundesliga and the WSLand that’s how I used to be so, happily, it feels as if I’ve got my hunger and my love for the game back.
The moment I ran out on to that pitch again on Saturday I felt so grateful for so many things. Therefore, I’d like to dedicate this to the people who have supported me so intensely throughout this period. Thank you to my family and to Pernille for being there to listen to all my worries. Thank you to my teammates and medical team, who have pushed me every day. And a special thank you to all the Bayern fans, for giving me such a warm welcome back.
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If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected]. And a reminder that Moving the Goalposts runs twice-weekly, each Tuesday and Thursday.
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2024-03-21 12:48:00
#Pain #worry #delight #footballer #injured #Womens #football
