Today I gathered some facts about Fernando’s current physical condition that I found very important and clarifying, and I thought some of you might as well. Most of this was already well known before today, but now there are bits of really insightful information that IMO allow us to understand his situation better.

I wrote it in chronological order to give it more clarity and tried to remain as objective as possible (I don’t know if I succeeded though).

What triggered this whole episode was the fact that Fernando went through a couple of knee injuries during 2009 and 2010 that left him on the sidelines for the most part of the season.

Guillem Balague and some other well-respected journalists, later revealed that during this period of time, Liverpool chose to give Fernando either false or incomplete information about the progress of his injuries, the only purpose of this being that he would play more, as he was the team’s most important and consistent player then, and the one who’d been single handedly winning matches for them.

Fernando got two knee surgeries in the space of four months during that same season, and during his rehabilitation process, he pushed himself to the limit to make it to the World Cup. A few weeks later, he got a call up from Del Bosque to go to South Africa.

Spain lost their first match against Switzerland (a match Fernando didn’t start), which made Del Bosque re-shape his plans, and he included Fernando in the starting eleven for the next game.

Fernando still had some nagging pain, but his desire to be fit and attitude through his rehabilitation process encouraged the Spain medical staff to give him the green light to play for the rest of the tournament. His performances weren’t good and Del Bosque dropped him in favour of Pedro.

He didn’t start in the final, but he played the extra time and got involved in the play that lead to Iniesta’s goal.

During the dying minutes of the match, Spain cleared a ball, which made Fernando sprint through the pitch, fall and get yet another painful groin injury. Shortly after that, the referee blew the final whistle and Spain became World Champions.

Liverpool sacked Rafa Benitez and appointed Roy Hodgson, but his poor run of results caused the owners to sack him as well and in came Kenny Dalglish. All of this happened between the summer of 2010 and January 2011.

On January 31th, Liverpool sold Fernando to Chelsea. He wanted to leave and (contrary to what’s been said by both the club and most media outlets), Liverpool wanted to sell him as well.

The Liverpool medical staff had known for a while that Fernando’s knee was still in a bad shape. The two surgeries he’d gone through and his rushed attempt to recover could prove to be fatal for him. But Liverpool firmly believed that if Chelsea were aware of that, they might not want to buy him anymore.

The last day of the transfer window arrived, and even though Fernando had voiced his desire to leave about three or four weeks before and handed in a transfer request shortly after, Liverpool only made it known to the public on January 29 th , two days before deadline. Luis Suárez was close to signing for them and as the Fernando move was imminent, they lined up Andy Carroll as his replacement.

, two days before deadline. Luis Suárez was close to signing for them and as the Fernando move was imminent, they lined up Andy Carroll as his replacement. Torres arrived to Chelsea on the last day of the transfer window with a few minutes to go until midnight. A few journalists (such as Duncan Castles and Ben Jacobs) have stated that Fernando didn’t go through a complete medical at Chelsea as the clock was ticking and he had to sign his contract as soon as possible. So, Liverpool didn’t let Chelsea know about his condition, but Chelsea didn’t test him right away either, just concluded from very superficial scans that he was “lack of match fitness”.

After Fernando left to London, a Liverpool staff member said: “When Fernando left Melwood that day we were conscious of the possibility that he might come back”, because they didn’t even think he’d pass the medical at Chelsea. But as there was no full medical and Chelsea never learned about his condition that day, Fernando signed for them and stayed.

He arrived to London with a shot knee and to this day he hasn’t recovered from it. Liverpool knew this but chose to not disclose the information to Chelsea because they wanted to sell him and cash in while they could. Since then, Chelsea has found out about the problem, and hopefully has treated him accordingly. Earlier today, Ben Jacobs (who interviewed Rafa Benitez yesterday and talked about this situation with him), qualified Fernando’s injury as “degenerative”, and said the issue “has been apparent since before he moved from Liverpool, making that deal a fab bit of business”.

About eight days ago, Roman Abramovich called Rafa Benitez offering him the Chelsea job (way before the Juventus match took place), and Rafa accepted, but for obvious reasons, had to remain quiet about it. It is very likely that since then, the Chelsea medical staff has briefed him on Fernando’s situation (even though he already knew most of it because of their time together at Liverpool), as he told Jacobs that he knows about his condition in detail and that it’s the reason for his form and confidence issues.

So, these are the hard facts, and I’ve already stated my opinion on the matter several times on my blog today, so I will spare you from that. But in summary, Fernando was lied to and misinformed about possibly the single most important thing about his career by the very people he trusted to be honest to him about it, (which people knew about already because it’s been making the rounds since 2011 but it’s been made worse by the new information IMO). The Liverpool staff even thought he’d go back to Merseyside that same night on January 31th because they didn’t think he’d pass his medical at Chelsea.

I’ve seen some people refer to Fernando’s injury as either “degenerative” or “chronic”, like I mentioned above. It got to be that way because it wasn’t dealt with properly in the past. There was some negligence involved as LFC’s medical staff didn’t let Fernando know about the progress of his injury so he could play more, and because Fernando rushed his recovery so he could play at the World Cup. To this day, he’s still suffering the consequences from it. Both Chelsea and Benitez are aware of the situation now and are working for him to get better. Now, it’s worth saying that we can’t be sure if this injury is “degenerative” in the sense that it gets worse with the passing of time and that the damage that’s been done to his knee is irrevocable, or “degenerative” in the sense that he’ll have some relapses from time to time but he’ll still be able to keep on playing at a good level. Let’s hope for the latter of course, it’s the less horrifying possiblity.

And lastly, Fernando’s said several times before that there is a “truth” about the whole transfer and his last months at Liverpool that people don’t know about, that everything was not how it seemed/how it was portrayed, but that he doesn’t feel ready to talk about it just yet, though he might in the future when he’s not in the eye of the storm anymore. Well.

Here are some of the sources I took all of this from (though not all, because I’ve been reading about this since January 2011 and unfortunately I have lost some links, but here is the basic and most recent information): x (this article was tweeted today by Duncan Castles and it’s an excerpt from a larger article written by him on 2011, but you have to pay to see the whole thing so we’ll have to settle for this), x (about the non-existent medical), x (this one is only useful because it’s one of the articles where Balague says Liverpool lied to Fernando and it’s very recent, it’s in spanish though I translated most of it last week), and last but not least, x, Sid Lowe’s Feb. 2011 article about how there was more about the transfer than what it seemed at first glance (he mentions LFC’s twisting of facts during those last days of January). And the twitters of the journos I mentioned where a lot of the information is from: https://twitter.com/DuncanCastles and https://twitter.com/JacobsBen

Edit: I forgot to say. It’s is very likely that we still don’t know plenty of things about this situation, but this is what there is out there atm. And tbh I’m not sure if I want to know more, it’s sickening enough as it is right now.

Edit 2: Also, I’d completely understand any scepticism on the matter. I would doubt it all myself (wouldn’t look at it twice actually) if the information had had come from the likes of The Daily Fail, The Sun, or even The Mirror, and ofc from either Marca or AS. But the articles were all published in The Times, The National, The Guardian and Spain’s El Imparcial, and the journos are well-respected and usually very reliable. That was pm the only thing that made my head turn tbh. And not only most of the information is not new at all (as old as Feb. 2011), but Fernando’s alluded to most things here himself and Rafa Benitez confirmed them to Ben Jacobs just yesterday.