On Monday night, Dejan Kulusevski walked out for Tottenham against Coventry for the first time in 526 days. His family had made a shirt for his daughter with the words “my hero” and the number 526 printed on it. I cannot think of a better way to describe what a long injury does to a household.
The day count is the bit that gets the headlines. Look at the stories behind the numbers, though, and you find something that does not fit on a scoreboard. Some players return a different person. Some never really return at all. Here are the longest injury lay-offs in football, and what I think they tell us.
The Longest Lay-Offs at a Glance
| Player | Days out | Injury | What happened next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zlatan Ibrahimovic | 280 | ACL | Returned and kept playing |
| Virgil van Dijk | 285 | ACL | Back to his best |
| Eduardo | 358 | Broken leg | Sold a year after returning |
| Neymar | 370 | ACL | Back, but never the same |
| Dejan Kulusevski | 526 | Patella cartilage fracture | Returned on Monday |
| Owen Hargreaves | 588 | Knee tendons | Retired in 2012 |
| Santi Cazorla | 668 | Achilles, ankle | Played on for years |
| Adam Forshaw | 700 | Hip | Returned, but needs surgery again |
| Phil Jones | 708 | Knee | Retired a year after leaving United |
| Gerard Deulofeu | 1,300+ | Knee | Still out, and without a club |
These figures come from SunSport’s list of football’s worst lay-offs. Deulofeu’s count is still rising as I write.
Kulusevski and the Knock
The 526 days started on 11 May 2025 against Palace. At the time, the then Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou described it as a knock. It sounded like nothing.
It was a fracture to the cartilage of his patella, an injury so rare in football that Thomas Frank later called it complicated and unlike anything the game had seen much of. Kulusevski needed two operations. He spent so long out that he never played a minute under Frank, who was sacked before he was fit. His return came under Roberto De Zerbi, in a 3-1 win over Coventry.
I am not here to blame Postecoglou. Managers say things in the heat of a press conference, and early information is often wrong. But a knock that became a year and a half is a reminder that the first thing a club says about an injury can be a long way from the truth. I think clubs should be more careful before they put a label on something they do not yet understand.
When a Career Never Recovers
The saddest names on the list are the ones where the injury did not just cost days. It cost everything.
Gerard Deulofeu tops the table by a mile. The former Watford and Everton winger came through Barcelona’s academy and has not played since a game for Udinese in January 2023. He has been out for around 1,300 days, with a severe knee problem that followed an ACL injury in 2022, and he is now without a club. He told the BBC earlier this year that he was praying for a miracle, and said he had lost all his personal life to the effort of getting fit. It is hard to read that without feeling for him.
Phil Jones is the other one that sticks. He made 229 appearances for Manchester United across 12 seasons, but only five in his final three. He had as many as 14 surgeries, missed 228 games, and spent almost two years out of the game. He has said he was ashamed of his injuries, to the point that he did not want to speak to his own team-mates. He left United in May 2023 and retired a year later.
Owen Hargreaves is the third. He joined United after the 2006 World Cup, played 39 times in four seasons because of knee trouble, and has said he was never the same after surgery and injections. He finished with four games for Manchester City and retired in 2012. Then there is Eduardo, whose leg was broken by Martin Taylor against Birmingham in February 2008. He lost 358 days and 51 matches, and was sold to Shakhtar a year after coming back.
What links them is that the return was not the end. They got back on the pitch, and the career had gone.
The Ones Who Came Back
It is not all bad news, and some of the stories on this list are extraordinary.
Santi Cazorla spent 668 days out with Achilles, ankle and knee problems. He played 180 times for Arsenal in six seasons, but only 11 in the last two, and an infection after one operation was serious enough that his leg could have been amputated. His surgeon told him he had never seen such an extreme case. He considered retiring. Instead he rebuilt his career at Villarreal, Al-Sadd and then Oviedo, where he played for years. I wrote recently about him returning to the streets outside the Carlos Tartiere to cheer on his old club, and it still feels like a miracle that he was ever on his feet.
Virgil van Dijk lost 285 days and 57 games after Jordan Pickford’s challenge in October 2020. He returned in August 2021 and has barely missed a game since, with just three Premier League absences in the last three seasons. Zlatan Ibrahimovic played for six months without an ACL to help Milan win their first Serie A title in 11 years, had the surgery in May 2022 and came back in February 2023.
Even then, success can be fragile. Adam Forshaw spent 700 days out with a hip problem, came back in August 2021 and carried on playing for Norwich, Plymouth and Blackburn. This month, the hip has caught up with him again, and he is going under the knife for another long spell. A comeback is not always a conclusion.
Abou Diaby and the Record Nobody Wants
There is one name that does not fit neatly on the list, because his story was not one injury but a career of them. Abou Diaby spent 2,156 days on the sidelines during his time at Arsenal, which one report called the most time any Premier League player has ever spent injured.
In nine years at the club, he made only 125 appearances, an average of about 14 a season. It started with a fractured ankle after a tackle from Sunderland’s Dan Smith in 2006, and a string of muscular problems followed. When he moved to Marseille, he went 506 days without a game before he finally came back in the Coupe de France.
That is a different kind of record. A single long injury is brutal, but a succession of them is worse in its own way, because you never get a chance to move on.
The Mind Gets Injured Too
If there is one thing the list makes clear, it is that long injuries are not only physical. Jones talked about being embarrassed to go into the club for treatment every day. Deulofeu spoke about losing his life outside football. James Maddison, who returned in the same game as Kulusevski after more than 500 days with an ACL injury, said he had dark days along the way.
I think that is the part we often miss. The cameras follow a player until the final whistle, then he goes home and spends a year and a half in a physio room. The routine is lonely, and the result is uncertain. When he returns, we applaud, but we have no idea what it cost.
That is why the shirt with 526 on it moved me. A child watching her father come back from something like that understands it better than any of us.
Is the Schedule to Blem?
SunSport said severe injuries are becoming more and more common, and pointed the finger at football’s packed calendar. I think there is something in it. More matches, more travel and less recovery time make the game harder on the body, and we have seen a lot of serious knee injuries in recent years.
I do not want to oversimplify. Injuries have always been part of football, and the medical evidence is complicated. But when players are asked to play 60 or 70 games a season, including summer tournaments, I would be surprised if it had no effect. At the very least, the people who set the calendar should be listening to the players.
What Clubs Owe Their Players
The final lesson is about the clubs. Neymar is the clearest example, because his lay-off cost a club a fortune. Al-Hilal reportedly paid around £75 million for him and got seven games and one goal across two seasons, after the ACL injury he picked up with Brazil in October 2023. It is a reminder that signing a star with a recent history of injury is a gamble.
But the clubs also owe their injured players more than patience. They owe them honesty about what is wrong, proper support for the mind as well as the body, and a place in the building that is not a lonely treatment room. When a player is out for a year and a half, he needs to feel that he still belongs.
My Verdict
I think the most important thing to take from this list is that the days are the least interesting number. 1,300, 708, 526. They tell you how long someone was away, but not what they lost or what they found when they came back.
Kulusevski was lucky. He got his comeback, and he got his shirt. Plenty of others on this list did not, and I think they deserve to be remembered for more than a count of days.
