World Cup: Benzema forfeits for a tear in the thigh. It’s serious ?

This is a first blow for the French football team, world champion, even before having been able to start its World Cup in Qatar: Karim Benzema, Ballon d’Or 2022, felt a sharp pain in his thigh during of a final collective training. It would be a tear in the quadriceps of the left thigh.

According to a press release from the French Football Federation, the medical teams on site in Doha have unfortunately confirmed a femoral rectus injury following an MRI, which will require a three-week recovery period.

The athlete is therefore forfeited for the entire duration of the championship and returned home just a few hours after the announcement, just to begin his recovery in the best conditions.

For Dr Roland Krzentowski, sports doctor and founder of Mon Stade, a health center dedicated to sport and performance, the announcement is not necessarily very serious for the rest of the footballer’s career, but the package is a wise decision.

“Karim Benzema has a quadriceps injury, which is very common among athletes and especially among footballers (an injury every 200 games on average for these athletes). It is even the most frequent lesion” he presses.

There are two types of muscle injury:

• The extrinsic lesion, due to an external aggression, such as a blow;
• The intrinsic lesion, related to the movement, an acceleration, for example, causes a contraction of the muscle which can be injured.

“The first heal fairly quickly because the shock will hit randomly and does not necessarily affect the muscle fibers essential for movement. While the intrinsic lesions affect the fibers related to movement. The recovery time is longer”. Then there is also a stage of severity ranging from simple stiffness to total muscle rupture. “With 3 weeks of recovery announced after an MRI, Karim Benzema probably suffers from edema and damaged muscle fibers”.

Has Karim Benzema “forced” too much, is he paying for his recklessness?

On the web, the reactions are linked, some, like his former teammate Samir Nasri even going so far as to say that his preparation would have been badly managed by his staff.

For the doctor, the question of professionalism does not arise: Karim Benzema is a serious athlete who respects sports protocols to the letter. But sees another hypothesis to his injury: “What challenges here is that he injured the other leg than the one that was worrying him this season”. Karim Benzema was indeed in the healing phase and this collective training was the first with the group, since his recovery and a series of individual training sessions. “Compensation is not impossible. After a recent injury, one can unconsciously, to protect his leg, overload the other side. There may have been a misplaced contraction, a bad coordination between the will to make a gesture and its realization, but all that is only a guess, I am not his doctor” says the doctor.

What consequences for an athlete after a tear?

Recovery after a tear is not necessarily very long, between 3 and 6 weeks depending on the severity. There is therefore no reason, for the time being, for Karim Benzema’s career to suffer in the future.

On the other hand, the athlete will have to go through several stages, explained by Dr. Krzentowski:

“There is always a rest phase which can be very short, between 48 hours to 1 week for a slight injury. Then a second examination with a professional athlete to see how things are progressing. Finally, rehabilitation begins as soon as possible. Without soliciting the damaged muscles at the start, (isometric rehabilitation) then by involving the muscle fibers little by little, before re-athleticization.

For the doctor, there is no doubt that a top athlete of the stature and seriousness of Karim Benzema will respect each stage of his fitness. “He was probably not in a position to recover in a match at 100%, so the decision to forfeit seems wise to me… Hoping that it will be to come back better and win the European Cup afterwards! “.