Montpellier defender Pedro Mendes furious with club’s medical staff over ACL recovery | OneFootball

Speaking in an interview with ZeroZero, Portuguese central defender and Montpellier man Pedro Mendes launched a scathing attack on the club’s own medical staff in relation to the treatment that they provided him with following an ACL injury that the player suffered in April 2021.

For the last 2 years, Mendes has struggled to return to fitness – the 32-year-old believes that the Montpellier medical staff are responsible:

“This medical staff works according to books. If the book says I have to start running again after 12 weeks, then I have to run, no matter if I feel pain. They made me believe that these pains were in my head. This started to create monsters, uncertainties, apprehensions [in my head]. I had to train with these demons… I invested my own money, I went to Portugal, I did tests and they detected tendonitis in the patellar tendon. I had a big muscle deficit, but I could not strengthen this deficit because I was in pain.”

Pedro Mendes – a former Real Madrid player who was coached by José Mourinho explained that he even went to seek out the counsel and support of medical staff at Ligue 1 leaders PSG, which characterises the level of exasperation felt by the player in relation to the quality of the Montpellier medical staff:

“I went to Paris one day. The [PSG] doctor said to me: ‘If you were a PSG player, I would stop you for 45 to 60 days. You can’t play with a tendon like that.’ I also went to Clairefontaine. They have a rehabilitation centre there for top athletes, where they do their physiotherapy, they can even sleep there. I paid out of my own pocket and I stayed there for recover. “The fact that today I am ready to resume competition, is thanks to the people that I met in Portugal,” who made his competitive return in Ligue 1 on April 9th against Toulouse ( 1-2).

Questioned about Mendes’ outburst in the media during a press conference ahead of a recent clash with Rennes, Michel Der Zakarian, the Montpellier coach, quickly sought to change subject: “He says what he wants to say. But then we mustn’t say anything either. For me, he went too far.”

James Thorpe | GFFN