[OC] The Infamous Eduardo Injury that Lost Arsenal the Premier League in 2008

Hi Everyone,

My name is Matthew Feyissa and I am a medical student from London. With no football going on, I have been making videos on the famous football injuries of the past. This piece is on the ex-Arsenal striker Eduardo Da Siva who suffered a leg break. Below is part of the transcript and also the video link which I would encourage you to check out as it contains footage of the injury to supplement the script and also the respective medical anatomy which I compared to the modern day injury of Andre Gomez in regards to treatment times. Let me know what you think and what players to focus on next. In the line up I have Petr Cech, Santi Cazorla and Fernando Torres to come in the upcoming weeks.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/DbCjPDFwpC0

Channel: Matthew Feyissa

Part of the Transcript:

On the 23 February 2008 Eduardo da Silva suffered a horrific injury due to a reckless ‘studs up’ challenge from Birmingham City player Martin Taylor. Eduardo was subsequently injured for around a year before he returned in March 2009 for Arsenal. Despite scoring 2 goals on his return in the eyes of fans he was never the same. This injury was the 1st big injury I witnessed when I was younger, now a couple similar ones have occurred with the famous Ramsey Shawcross injury and most recently the Andre Gomes injury for Everton this season. Before we start make sure to like the video and subscribe to the channel and after this check out my last video on Ronaldo’s Euro 2016 final knee injury curtesy of Payet for France.

If we take a look at the mechanism of the injury we can assess what actually happened. So in the video we can see Taylor going studs up into the Tibia bone which forms the shin of Eduardo and his foot almost proceeds to continue down with his momentum into the ankle joint. There was quite a lot of force going into the challenge causing Eduardo’s ankle to collapse under the pressure and also his leg to jolt back with the force of the tackle. Regarding his diagnosis he suffered an open fracture dislocation of the ankle consisting of a broken fibula and an open dislocation of his left ankle.

To understand how this injury occurred we are going to look into the anatomy. This is a 3D anatomy model which I’ll link in the description for those interested but 1st we are going to start with the complete anatomical body and remove all the organ, nerve, lymphatic and others systems to leave just the skeletal and connective tissues.

If we focus on the lower portion left leg and remove the muscle we are left with the ankle joint which is formed from the articulations (connections) between the Talus bone in the foot, and the Tibia and Fibula joint of the leg. Normal anatomical function of the ankle consists of upwards movement known as dorsiflexion and a downwards movement known as plantarflexion. The ankle joint also has restricted lateral movement side to side.

When Eduardo got tackled the force caused forced inversion of the foot which not only would have sprained the lateral ligament of the ankle but also contributed to snapping his fibula bone. The fibula bone is the thin bone on the lateral aspect of the lower leg. Eventhough it is paired with the tibia it is fairly weak due to its structure. The Tibia much thicker and broad is responsible for weight bearing however the fibula is only a stabilization bone for the ankle. So the break would have occurred in the distal portion of Eduardo’s Fibula bone causing it to snap and dislodge from the ankle no longer articulating fully.

The next part we have to consider is the open dislocation. The word ‘open’ in medical context typically refers to the breach of the skin which can occur when a broken bone pierces the skin making it susceptible to infection and other risks. So to treat an injury such as this first you have to…

Check out the video link above for the treatment process of the injury and full comparison to the injury of Andre Gomez that despite being similar took half the time. Let me know what you think, if there are any mistakes in the piece which I can correct and also what players to make videos on.