Marchisio: 'Risked knee replacement'

By Football Italia staff

Former Juventus midfielder Claudio Marchisio revealed the extent of the injury that ended his career. “I was never the same player. I risked having a knee replacement by 40.”

Marchisio ruptured his anterior cruciate ligaments in a game against Palermo in April 2016 that forced him to miss Euro 2016 and the start of the 2016-17 season, and the former midfielder says injuries of that magnitude change everything.

“Until you experience it you cant understand what it is to have an injury of that enormity. After it everything changed for me: running, moving, reacting. The brain tells you that you are no longer the same player,” Marchisio told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

“It does not mean that you can’t return to playing at a high level, because other have. However it changes a lot of things.

“To make my knee stronger I had to gain weight, especially in my legs, and therefore I didn’t have the agility that I had before. I had to change my way of playing.

“When you fall to the ground, in those seconds you think more about the pain than what comes after. It would have been my last international tournament and in those moments you realise everything will change. It was a hard time.”

Marchisio, who left Juve for Zenit St. Petersburg at the end of the 2017-18 season, says he made the decision to retire in his first year in Russia.

“I knew already from within that final year, when I began to have trouble with the other knee. It got a point where I had no more cartilage left in my knee, and the tibia and femur bones grated together.

“I played on because I thought it was acceptable pain, but I had to have another operation, otherwise I would’ve risked having a knee replacement by the time I was 40 years old.

“When you see certain facts you can’t just think about football, but you have to think about your life. I couldn’t fool myself. My head wanted to continue playing but my body couldn’t do it anymore.”

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