La Liga Facts

Jornada 21 proved to be a weekend of freak injuries in La Liga. Video here. (Warning: Lots of blood.)

We posted earlier about Real Sociedad midfielder David Zurutuza’s broken nose, but it turns out he sustained a serious fracture and had to be operated on later that day. The player he collided with, Sporting Gijon’s Gregory, was also bloodied in the collision and had to receive 7 stitches.

In the intense match between Racing Santander and Valencia CF, Ever Banega had to be brought off mid-game for a muscle tear. The substitute brought on to replace Banega was Mehmet Topal. Later in that same game, Topal went for a header and suffered a concussion—briefly losing consciousness and was later hospitalized. The player whom Topal collided with was Racing Santander’s Pape Diop, who also had to be taken out of the game from the head trauma.

Also from the Racing-Valencia match: Another contested header between Christian Fernández and Aritz Aduriz left the former with 12 sutures to stop the bleeding from his head. He played the rest of the match, as did Aduriz. Aduriz stayed on the pitch long enough to score a goal, but later suffered double vision, nausea, and memory loss—he was unable to remember scoring the goal. He too was hospitalized overnight.

(The video ends with a Segunda division player whose jaw was fractured by an opposing player’s elbow. Oh, and two of his teeth were broken in. Ouch.)