We are not all doctors but, in the moment, you did not need to be when viewing the replay.
Leah Williamson’s knee appeared to buckle, then release itself with an unnatural bend, the joint popping forward with a tell-tale judder. Clearly, the England captain’s appearance at the World Cup was in question. It was a sadly familiar scene.
A befallen player surrounded by physios and club doctors carrying out their assessments following an often innocent-looking foot plant or a twisted knee.
Four months earlier, the Arsenal manager Jonas Eidevall watched his star striker Vivianne Miedema’s knee spring back in the same circumstance. Without contact, chasing a loose ball; an abnormal movement in the knee like a doll jerked out of its packaging.
Sometimes, it feels as though the world of women’s football is just waiting for its next ACL injury. One list puts the number at more than 110 in elite women’s football in the past year and a half. Among them are Ballon d’Or winners and nominees and Olympic champions — star names deprived of playing in World Cups and European Championships.
Part-time footballers are crowdfunding to escape NHS waiting lists; players like Tottenham Hotspur’s Ellie Brazil who, at 24, is partway through rehabilitation for her second ACL injury in three…
