Kingsley Coman out “several weeks” after suffering ankle injury in Bayern’s Bundesliga opener

After making such a vibrant start to the match for Bayern Munich against Hoffenheim, Kingsley Coman was forced to come off just before the stroke of halftime after sustaining an ankle injury.

The injury occurred when Hoffenheim’s Nico Schulz went in on a rather nasty challenge when Coman had the beating of him down the right channel. To be fair, the conditions of the pitch after a fair amount of steady rainfall probably didn’t do either player any favors, but the challenge from Schulz was still rash, and brandished a yellow card - on closer look, it may have been Schulz’s trailing leg on the challenge that did the most damage to Coman’s left ankle. The foul came just a minute after a hard challenge on Franck Ribery from Pavel Kadeřábek that caused some verbal altercations between both sets of players and the referee.

After the match, Bayern’s medical staff performed assessments on Coman and were able to conclude that the midfielder suffered a ruptured syndesmosis ligament just above the left ankle. Per the club website and official Twitter account, Coman’s ankle will require an operation and he will be on the sidelines for at least several weeks; perhaps even two months.

The injury is a massive blow for Bayern, as Coman has looked quite impressive since the competitive campaign begun under Niko Kovac. With the amount of time he missed through injury last season, having Coman back in the lineup is almost like having a brand new signing for Bayern. On a personal level, the set back is sure to take a psychological toll on the 22-year old, especially since it’s the same exact injury he had last year, keeping him sidelined for about three months. You could tell just how devastated he was, too, when he was being carried off the pitch by two members of the medical staff. Schulz came over to him to apologize when he was being carried off, but if you looked closely, you could see Coman shake his head in disappointment as tears continued to stream down his face.

Hopefully for Coman and Bayern the operation and recovery process go as smoothly as possible and he’s back on the pitch before Bayern’s packed fixture schedule to close out the hinrunde.

A nice touch from Hoffenheim: