Barcelona has officially announced the news of De Jong's medial collateral ligament tear in his right knee, and COPE's team reporter, Víctor Navarro, stated during a live broadcast that the player himself attributes the worsening of his injury to the national team's doctors.
There's indeed 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 considered a long-term absence. Ter Stegen said it wasn't, saying the recovery time needed was shorter, but Barcelona felt it would be more beneficial for them if it were a long-term absence, because that way they could 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 good 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 within the club, what they said was that it had absolutely nothing to do with it, because back then, with Ter Stegen's case, they did think that Ter Stegen was declaring war on the club. Because Ter Stegen publicly issued a statement, and in that statement, he clearly stated that he would only be out for three months due to injury, which already ruled 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 injury layoff would be over four months. If the injury layoff exceeds 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 this 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 the case of De Jong, he largely blames the Dutch national team doctors. De Jong's account 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 it was entirely a problem with the Dutch national team's medical team.
Furthermore, this statement also mentioned that neither Barcelona, who issued an official announcement around 7 PM today, nor De Jong himself, discussed a specific recovery timeline. He said he was very fortunate not to require surgery, but Barcelona did not make such a clear statement; Barcelona merely 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 Blaugrana medical services department will continue to track the evolution of De Jong's injury.
In addition to Barcelona's official statement, what we can also gather is that they will assess his physical condition weekly, and if they find that conservative treatment is not working or the body is not responding as expected, they will tell him that he must undergo surgery, as most doctors would recommend for his specific type of injury. If he really undergoes surgery, the time off due to injury would be about five or six months, thus making it a long-term absence. However, with the current conservative treatment, the theoretical recovery time is three or four months, which would mean he would not be in a long-term absence state.
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