Is Cristiano Ronaldo recovering properly from his knee injury?

Information was scarce in the early stages following the night of the Euro 16 final and to be honest there hasn't been a lot said from either the Ronaldo camp nor from Real Madrid as a club either.  Even the almost-mandatory statement that ‘his progress will be monitored' has been missing on this occasion.  It might well be that the club are respecting his privacy and thereby releasing as little information as possible.

Talk of the actual injury and of any possible complications has been kept to a minimum

Since most of the updates have actually come from Cristiano himself, this looks potentially to be the most likely scenario.   The latest round of images released over the past couple of weeks have all been in Madrid; where he's been pictured as Valdebebas in light training and also hammering away at his gym programme.  Since he's began to increase his rehab and fitness levels, there's been less secrecy over whether there have been any additional concerns or not; but it's still been very much a controlled release of information overall.

It's almost as if CR7 is saying to the world:  "I injured my knee and that's all you need to know".

The optional addition would be to say that "I've been working hard to get fit, and over the last couple of weeks I've been able to step things up.  Hopefully I will return to the team shortly; provided there are no complications".

It's looking as though the knee injury sustained in the Euro 16 final has turned out to be a sprain of the medial ligament aka the MCL after all.  Any fears of associated injuries to other structures such the anterior cruciate (ACL) and meniscus / cartilage therefore appear to have been unfounded.

There's probably been a little bit more information filtering through in the past fortnight than in the early days where media references to the actual injury were played down by CR7 himself; who stated after only a couple of weeks that he ‘would be fine and would come back stronger'.

There's no doubt that Real Madrid as a club are involved in the rehab process.  Zinedine Zidane has spoken about the progress Cristiano has made recently and you can tell from the way he refers to the whole situation that things are under control.

There's no doubt either that Cristiano will have gone through the mandatory protocols of having the knee thoroughly examined and will also likely have taken further opinions if he felt this was appropriate; but the day to day events were kept private, likely at Cristiano's request.

Markus Waldén who is an orthopaedic surgeon, football doctor, and member of the Football Research Group in Linköping, Sweden, wrote a recent blog in the British Journal of Sports Medicine about Cristiano's injury entitled ‘Surprisingly great interest for an MCL sprain -€” Cristiano Ronaldo and the 2016 UEFA Euro final'.

I don't think he anticipated the interest that a knee injury would generate among football followers across the globe.

However, it's not just any knee injury.  After all; we are discussing the world's best player here and the interest isn't just confined to the medical aspect.

It's the fact that it's Cristiano's injury being discussed that makes such a big difference and it shows the changing face of football as far as the public are concerned.  There's probably been more interest generated over this particular injury than for any other strains and sprains Cristiano has sustained in recent times.

Nevertheless, it would appear that Cristiano isn't keen on sharing the details of his day-to-day routine with the outside world and prefers to be left alone to get on with it.  As a private person, he's taken a real step back from discussing the injury outside of his own rehab circles; seemingly preferring instead to focus on his recovery and keep his progress under wraps until now.

By all accounts the private approach to rehabilitation appears to have worked and hopefully we'll see the results sooner rather than later.

Reference:

http://blogs.bmj.com/bjsm/2016/07/20/surprisingly-great-interest-for-an-mcl-sprain-cristiano-ronaldo-and-the-2016-uefa-euro-final/