5 Football Players Who Suffered Career-ending Injuries

When Pele, the king of football, described the game as “jogo bonito”, meaning the beautiful game, men, women, and children around the world nodded in satisfactory agreement. Finally a phrase had been uttered to do football justice.

For many decades, football has been rightly dubbed as a beautiful game which has unified billions around the world, producing widespread spectacle and excitement like no other sport in history.

But then, that metaphor of beauty has not always extended itself to the players of the game. Over the centuries, a number of football stars have seen their careers hugely plagued by unyielding injury crises. As a matter of fact, one of the all time greats, the real Ronaldo (Lima), despite lofty heights he had attained in his day, is considered to have achieved below potential due to a recurring knee injury that plagued his career in his prime.

But all of that being said, others have had it worse, while some players have had to bear the frustration of unremitting injury crises, others have altogether seen their careers terminated prematurely as a result of brutal injuries.

While every footballer surely dreams of playing long into their 30s or of retiring at the top of their game, some players see their promising careers cruelly cut short.

Every generation has a lost talent with the cumulative wear and tear on players’ bodies meaning they can no longer perform at their peak, but for some the end of their careers can be pinpointed to one moment, one crunching tackle or one unfortunate twist.

Eko Hot Blog takes a look at 5 players whose careers ended following irredeemable injury crises.

(1) Pierluigi Casiraghi: At a time when import strikers were still something of a rarity, the £5.4million capture of Pierluigi Casiraghi was a statement from Gianluca Vialli and a Chelsea side which was becoming increasingly full of foreign talent.

The forward came with an impressive pedigree after spells with Juventus and Lazio, as well as being part of the Italian national team at the 1994 World Cup, and was expected to hit the ground running under his fellow countryman.

It didn’t happen that way, sadly, and after a run of just one goal in his first nine games, a heavy collision with West Ham goalkeeper Shaka Hislop left the Chelsea striker slumped on the Upton Park turf in agony.

He had sustained a cruciate knee ligament injury which ultimately needed 10 operations in a bid to try and put things right. Sadly it never happened and he was forced to retire in 2002 as his Chelsea contract was terminated.

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(2) Alfe-Inge Haaland: Today, Erling Braut Haaland is without a doubt one of the best strikers in world football. At 20, the golden boy has already amassed encomiums and adulations from near and far for his rare brilliance in front of goal and has even become more famous than dear old dad whose football career was cut short by an irredeemable injury.

Had Alf-Inge Haaland’s football career ended in almost any other way, it would not have garnered anything close to the column inches, book chapters and airtime it ultimately did.

The tackle from Roy Keane at Old Trafford in April 2001 was bad, the images of the Manchester United captain standing over the then-City midfielder, taunting him, were not pretty, but the ultimate fall-out was perhaps worse.

Keane admitted in his autobiography that he set out to injure Haaland that day, following a tackle on the midfielder four-years previously which left the Irishman with a knee ligament injury: ‘I’d waited long enough. I f****** hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***,’ he wrote.

After a red card for the tackle, his revelations earned Keane a further ban and a fine, but sent Haaland tumbling towards retirement. He did in fact play for Norway the following week, but never completed 90 minutes again before being forced to retire in 2003.

While it was an injury to the opposite knee which ultimately forced Haaland to retire, the Norwegian maintains it was the challenge from Keane which was at fault.

(3) David Busst: The injury which ended Coventry defender David Busst’s career is widely regarded as one of the most gruesome in the history of the game.

Just two minutes into Coventry’s game at Manchester United on April 8 1996, having ventured forward after his team won a corner, Busst collided with United players Denis Irwin and Brian McClair, suffering extensive compound fractures to both the tibia and fibula of his right leg.

The match was delayed for nine minutes while Busst was carried from the field on a stretcher while water and sand had to be used to clean his blood from the pitch.

United goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel reputedly vomited on the pitch after seeing the injury and required counselling afterwards along with a number of other players present.

‘I didn’t look down, you go into shock mode,’ Busst later said. ‘The pain is excruciating. You freeze. You think any movement will make it worse.’

(4) Dean Ashton: By the age of 23, Dean Ashton had risen through the football ranks from Crewe in Division Two to West Ham in the Premier League, via a successful spell with Norwich, and had made his first England squad.

He was a natural goalscorer who could find the net with his feet and head, from range and by being in the right place at the right time. It seemed as if Ashton could fill the shoes of great England strikers past.

That was until a tackle from Shaun Wright-Phillips in England training, a day before his debut, which shattered his left ankle an ensured his career was over by the time he reached 26.

(5) Ben Collett: Ben Collett joined Manchester United as a 9-year-old trainee. Progressing through the U-17s and U-19s in 2001 with aplomb, Collett’s performances in the 2002/03 season led to him getting the Jimmy Murphy Young Player of the Year award, a prestigious award given to the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Phil Neville in the past.

Collett also scored a goal in the first leg of the FA Youth Cup final in that season. It seemed then that Collett was well on his way to forging a successful career at Manchester United. Fans likened him to star winger Ryan Giggs, and they had high hopes from Collett.

But fate had other ideas for him.

On May 1, 2003, barely a week after winning the FA Youth Cup, Collett was selected for a reserve team game against Middlesborough.

An ill-timed tackle by Middlesborough’s Gary Smith resulted in Collett’s leg being broken in two places.

The injury ended Collett’s career, days before he was to be offered a three-year contract at the club, which meant Collett lost out on the chance to earn millions of pounds through contractual agreements and merchandising fees.

In May 2008, five years after the injury, Collett opened legal proceedings against Gary Smith and Middlesborough, citing loss of future earnings. Sir Alex Ferguson and Gary Neville were amongst the witnesses called in for the case, to give evidence of Collett’s talent.

Middlesborough FC and Gary Smith admitted their liability in the case, and in August 2008 Collett was awarded £4.5 million in damages.