Holger Badstuber’s latest injury is not just a cruel blow for the centre-back, but also impacts Bayern Munich’s plans to win this season’s treble and Germany’s aspirations for Euro 2016.
The 26-year-old fractured his left ankle tackling his Bayern teammate David Alaba in training before Sunday’s league game at Augsburg. He underwent surgery on Saturday and will miss at least three months after his fourth serious injury since December 2012.
From Bayern’s perspective, the timing is terrible. They face Juventus in the last 16, first-leg of the Champions League in just 10 days’ time.
Coach Pep Guardiola was without a single fit centre-back for Sunday’s 3-1 Bundesliga win at Augsburg.
He played a makeshift back four of Juan Bernat, Alaba, Philipp Lahm and Joshua Kimmich—all of whom are under five foot, 11 inches (1.80m).
Jerome Boateng and Javi Martinez are already out for the coming months with groin and knee injuries respectively. Medhi Benatia is only just back from missing the last seven games with a leg injury.
New signing Serdar Tasci was concussed in his first training session last week after signing on loan and needs conditioning.
The injury crisis at centre-back hampers Bayern’s plans to farewell Guardiola, before his summer departure to Manchester City, by repeating the 2013 treble.
Bayern are hunting a record fourth straight Bundesliga title, their 18th German Cup crown and want to win the Champions League after exiting the semi-finals for the last two years.
“It’s a nightmare. He (Badstuber) knows we are always there for him,” said Guardiola on Sunday.
The Spaniard, like the rest of the squad before the game, wore a T-shirt with a direct message to Badstuber: “We’re with you—you’ll manage it again (to come back)”.
“It was unbelievable what he has been through and the mood was on the floor after we heard,” said Bayern captain Lahm. “He was in good form and we’re devastated for him that he is injured again.”
But Badstuber’s injury is also a blow for Germany head coach Joachim Loew with the European championships in France now four months away.
Badstuber missed Germany’s 2014 World Cup win with injury. With Boateng already out of Germany’s home friendlies against England and Italy in March, Badstuber was in form having only returned in November after seven months out with a torn thigh muscle.
“It’s unbelievable that it’s always Holger who is affected,” said Loew. “It’s very bitter news. He was on his way back to full form.”
Badstuber showed plenty of fighting spirit despite his latest set-back.
“Once a fighter, always a fighter! Think positive. Now more than ever,” he wrote on Twitter.
But his Bayern and Germany team-mates struggled to get their heads around how their colleague could have such bad luck.
“Don’t let your head go down, you’ll do it!” tweeted World Cup winner Mario Goetze, while Germany’s captain Bastian Schweinsteiger wrote: “such a skilled footballer, a great friend and so much bad luck!”. Even Borussia Dortmund, Bayern’s arch-rivals in Germany, offered an encouraging: “A Badstuber always gets up again!”
Few professionals have trod the long path back from injury as often as Badstuber. He has been limited to 31 appearances for Germany since 2010 by a horrific injury list.
He first tore his right cruciate ligament in December 2012, only to repeat the injury in the same leg the following May. He was out for a total of 642 days and only returned in January 2015, but then tore his left thigh in April last year.
Loew was recently asked if Badstuber was in his thoughts for a Euro 2016 place and the coach’s answer proved to be prophetic: “fitness is a prerequisite.”
Badstuber’s Germany team-mate and Schalke captain Benedikt Hoewedes optimistically tweeted: “I am certain that we will see each other at the Euro in France: On the pitch!”
There seems little chance of that.