Bayern Munich may have just saved Lucas Hernández from even more serious injury

The story of Lucas Hernández’s remarkably proleptic injury history with Bayern Munich, months before he officially joins the club, has been enriched yet again. According to new information obtained by Bild (Bild+), the operation that Hernández received on the day of his announcement was to repair holes that had developed in his MCL.

Atletico Madrid initially wanted to treat Hernández’s injury “conservatively,” so that he could still play later this season, but Bayern insisted on the operation — probably by threatening to cancel the deal altogether otherwise. Since Atletico’s season is de facto over, they had little to gain by keeping him. Hence Hernandez’s and his teammates’ early farewells.

That was apparently the right move. The operation in Innsbruck, Austria, took place under the supervision of members of the medical team of the French national team. Healthy ligament tissue from Hernández’s body was grafted to replace the damaged, porous tissue in his right knee. The ligament had apparently developed holes on account of a cortisone treatment.

Bild consulted sports doctor Dr. Thorsten Dolla from Berlin, who commented:

When you use cortisone, then the MCL probably already was irritated. Normally, one dose should be enough. If cortisone is used more often, it can destroy the ligament structure. In the case of this injury, it’s very likely that the player had pain in his knee weeks before the operation.

Had Hernández received further cortisone shots to play again for Atletico this season, the ligament could have ruptured. Hernández will need roughly four months to recover. He thus should be close to full fitness at the beginning of August, just in time for the 2019-2020 season.