Barcelona has officially announced the news of De Jong's medial collateral ligament tear in his right knee, and COPE's embedded reporter, Víctor Navarro, stated in a live broadcast that the player himself attributes the worsening of his injury to the national team's doctors.
There's certainly some entanglement and complexity regarding De Jong's situation, because I just remembered that around this time last summer, we were dealing with Ter Stegen's issue and a discussion about whether an injury should be classified as a long-term absence. At the time, Ter Stegen said no, stating that the recovery time would be shorter, but Barcelona felt it would be more beneficial for them if it were a long-term absence, as it would allow them to register other players. I remember it was something like Joan García's situation at the time; they needed to register Joan García, so if Ter Stegen had a long-term absence, it would have been a very favorable thing for them, and so on. But this (De Jong's situation) has absolutely nothing to do with that; is this going in a completely different direction?
No, absolutely nothing to do with it. Well, and after asking sources at the club, they also said it has absolutely nothing to do with it, because at the time with Ter Stegen, they indeed believed that Ter Stegen was declaring war on the club. Because Ter Stegen publicly released a statement at that time, in which he clearly stated that he would only be out for three months due to injury, thus ruling out the possibility of it being a long-term absence.
Although in the end, it was confirmed that it was indeed a long-term absence, and Barcelona at the time informed the Blaugrana medical department that the absence would be more than four months. If the absence is more than fourmonths, it is considered a long-term absence, and then you can temporarily cancel his registration slot with the football association and sign another person to replace him, and the new replacement you sign doesn't even need to play the same position as the injured player.
But in the current situation, this is not the case. In fact, in De Jong's case, he largely blames the Dutch national team doctors. De Jong's statement is that during the World Cup, the Dutch doctors told him his injury was minor, but when he returned to Barcelona and underwent more medical examinations, they found the injury was actually much more serious. So, he made it very clear that this was entirely a problem from the Dutch national team's medical team.
And it was also mentioned in this statement that neither the Barcelona club, which issued an official announcement around 7 PM today, nor De Jong himself, has discussed the specific recovery time. He said he was very lucky not to need surgery, but Barcelona did not express themselves as clearly as he did. Barcelona only said that he would continue to receive conservative treatment, but did not say that the possibility of surgery had been completely ruled out. Barcelona's statement is that they will closely monitor the development of the injury. The medical services department of the Blaugrana will continue to track the evolution of De Jong's injury.
In addition to Barcelona's official statement, one thing we can understand is that they will assess his physical condition every week, and if they find that conservative treatment is not working or the body is not responding as expected, then they will tell him that he must undergo surgery, as most doctors would recommend for his specific injury. If he does undergo surgery, the time out due to injury would be about five or six months, so in that case, it would be a long-term absence. With the current conservative treatment, the theoretical recovery time is three or four months, which would mean he would not be in a state of long-term absence.
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