Fulham midfielder Andreas Pereira has detailed how an injury picked up against Manchester City last year sounded like a pencil snapping and was so bad, they wouldn’t show him images of it.
The midfielder has been speaking to Het Nieuwsblad in something of a varying Q&A covering a number of topics, including the worst pain he’s ever felt as a footballer.
The 27-year-old is yet to suffer a truly serious injury, and will be hoping that remains the case too, with his longest injury lay off coming early in his career when an Achilles tendon problem saw him spend 42 days out in 2017/18.
He’s been fortunate since then to avoid big issues except for last season, when a fibula injury picked up against Manchester City saw him spending 29 days on the treatment table and missing six Fulham games in the process.
Initial thoughts were that both of those sums would much higher after the clash with Manchester City’s Manuel Akanji appeared to be a nasty one, to say the least.
“There are different types of pain in life of course. But what immediately comes to mind is my broken fibula against Manchester City on April 30th this year,” he said.
“I went into a duel with Mannel Akanji but felt that I would not have the ball. He hit my head, so I’m off balance and I land wrong. You know that sound of a pencil snapping? That’s it.
“Strangely enough, I felt almost nothing because of the adrenaline. That’s why I first thought that my ankle ligaments were sprained or something. They didn’t want to show me the images. In hindsight, you know that it’s not good.
“Should I go to the hospital then? To be honest, we still had a while there. I had doubts about it because I hardly felt any pain. It was only in the ambulance that I started to feel the pain. Slightly, anyway. Until I received the news that my leg was broken. Then I really started to feel it.”
