Top 10 Most Injury Prone Footballers of All Time!

Most Injury Prone Footballers – All Time Top 10

Injuries are an ugly part of the beautiful game so here are the Top 10 most Injury prone footballers of all time.

And although injuries are just that, part of the game – they can have a massive impact on any side, especially one in a relegation scrap, aiming for promotion, or trying to clinch a title. Here we will look at the Top ten most Injury prone footballers of all time!

The moment a player get injured, the manager will instantly begin to worry – as it could mean trouble for the side for a number of reasons – it could mean the difference between winning and losing a game. It can also have serious repercussions on the player, in some cases, a single injury can damage a player so much, he may never be the same again. Watch & Bet Football Live =>

Let’s take a look and go through the top ten most injury prone footballers of all time!

Top 10 Most Injury Prone Footballers

10. Thiago Alcantara

How far could Thiago have progressed in his career if he hadn’t been hampered by injuries? Surely he could have been one of the elite midfielders on the European scene, but injuries have denied him the chance to become that key player for both club and country.

He has suffered from 21 total injuries since joining Bayern Munich.

9. Rafinha

If Thiago is a player prone to injury, his brother Rafinha suffers the same misfortune. The Barcelona midfielder has fared far worse than his brother, in fact.

Although his injuries are not as frequent, they have often been much more serious. Rafinha has suffered three major knee injuries – two cruciate ligament tears, one of them which he is currently recovering from, and a meniscus injury.

8. Ronaldo

Knee injuries bothered Ronaldo throughout his career, stretching back to his days as a teenager at PSV in 1994. Despite those setbacks, he is still regarded as the greatest striker of the last 20 years and one of the greatest footballers to ever play the game. Ronaldo overcame several fitness issues in the Netherlands to score 54 times in 58 games for the Dutch club. He continued to score regularly at Inter between 1997 and 2002 after a spell at Barcelona.

More injuries plagued him in Italy though, and they didn’t completely go away in Madrid. While at Milan in 2008 he suffered another serious injury, ending his career as a professional once and for all. He went back to Brazil, ending his career at Brazilian club Corinthians before eventually retiring in 2011.

With all the performances and big games Ronaldo has had in his career, one can only imagine what he could have achieved if he was consistently injury-free. Watch & Bet Football Live =>

7. Michael Essien

Former Chelsea midfielder Michael Essen is one player who has seen far more bench and table action than most of his former team-mates. Nicknamed “the bison”, Essien was an explosive midfielder who never backed away from a little bit of action. But needless to say, due to his frequent injuries we never got to see the best of him on a constant basis.

The Ghanaian international has suffered knee and leg injuries multiple times whilst at Chelsea, and at times has faced periods of up to six months out of action. Essien was also forced to miss out on the 2010 World Cup, in which Ghana were eliminated in the quarterfinals on penalties against Uruguay.

6. Arjen Robben

If you talk about players made of glass then, inevitably, the image of Robben will come to mind. The Dutchman has possibly been one of the players who has missed more games than he has played in due to injuries.

His speed has caused him plenty of muscle problems throughout his career, depriving the world of a fantastic talent on a regular basis. Injuries even cost him his Real Madrid career, as they sold him to Bayern after just two seasons due to their frustrations with his fitness.

5. Marco Reus

Surely there is nothing that Reus hates more in his life than his left ankle. Because of that body part and its fragility, he missed the 2014 World Cup, which Germany ended up winning. A cruciate ligament problem blighted him in 2017 and oft-complicated groin issues have also weighed down his career at Dortmund.

4. Marco van Basten

Van Basten is considered to be one of the greatest ever players to strike a football. It was unfortunate that we didn’t get to enjoy watching him play for too long. His accomplishments for powerhouse Ajax took him to AC Milan in 1987, and there he won two European Cups to add to his Euro ’88 triumph with his country.

He was 28 when he played his last game in 1993, with persistent knee and ankle problems forcing him to call time on his illustrious career two years later.

3. Thomas Vermaelen

“Vermaelen is a player who provides immediate quality,” was the phrase from sporting director Andoni Zubizarraeta on the day that he was presented at the Catalan club. From that moment on, he has been suffering from a heavy dose of bad luck and misfortune since arriving from Arsenal.

At Barcelona, he picked up 12 separate injuries, sidelining him for a total of 83 games and 444 days.

2. Gareth Bale

Ruptures to his calf, ankle problems, thigh issues, tightness in his hamstrings. Those are just some of the areas Bale has injured since arriving at Real Madrid in the summer of 2013.

Injuries have prevented him from truly becoming the leader of Los Blancos and the player that everyone expected him to be when he arrived from Tottenham.

1. Kieran Tierney

This Arsenal player definitely lies on the top of our list because it seems as though he is perpetually injured. He plays as a left-back for the Gunners but hasn’t been able to play much for them since he keeps coming down with multiple injuries. In the 2019-20 seasons itself, he has had two injuries.

It consisted of one hip injury in June 2019 and shoulder injury in December 2019. He is still out – and is currently recovering. Before this, in the 2018-19 season, he suffered a groin injury and had to get surgery for that, which was preceded by a hip injury one month prior. Watch & Bet Football Live =>