Charly Musonda Jr just keeps climbing ‘impossible mountain’ of knee injuries

Charly Musonda Jr arrived at Chelsea so long ago that a whole new era has come and gone at the club. Signing one week after countryman Eden Hazard in 2012, the then 15-year-old wonderkid looked destined for stardom.

We spent many of the subsequent years enjoying Eden at the top of his game, and waiting for Charly to get there as well — whether with him out on loan, at the club, or deleting his Instagram account over and over. In 2017, the breakthrough looked likely. He made his Chelsea senior debut, scored his first Chelsea goal (while wearing Hazard’s old No.17), and featured 7 times for Antonio Conte’s side in the first-half of the 2017-18 season.

Photo by Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images

He’s made just 12 appearances since, and only 4 in the last two years. He hasn’t scored since either.

Some of that can be chalked up to the usual loan risks, but a much bigger reason have been all the injuries, including two major knee surgeries. It’s a familiar and all too sad story. Knee ligaments and Achilles tendons are career-altering and sometimes career-defining injuries. They can even be career-ending, even in this day and age.

In fact, as Charly revealed on Instagram today, for the second of those surgeries, he was advised that it would be “an impossible mountain to climb”: the end of his career.

That was thirteen months ago. And while he’s not quite ready to come back just yet, he’s far from giving up. The dream lives on.

“It’s been fours years since I played back to back professional games, three years since I last played for my club, two of those last four years, I’ve been injured with the post cruciate ligament of my knee. Nothing but heartbreak and heartache.

“Doctors told me going through surgery after being out for so long would be the end, an impossible mountain to climb, we’re [sic] the exact words.

“I miss football so much, to say the least, and I’m doing everything I can to play once again, to all the kids out there who have a dream and are injured or are going through monumental setbacks, never give up! I’ll keep climbing the insurmountable mountain everyday to run with the football once again, because there’s no better feeling than taking someone on and feeling alive.

“Until that day comes I’ll keep training and believing in the impossible comeback, because the greatest comebacks always seem like there is no way back, and that’s when we’ve got to dig deep and live to tell the story and not die in it.

#ThisIsMyStory and how I keep training and staying ready, despite the odds, that one day I’ll be back.

-Charly Musonda Jr; source: Instagram

Charly Jr turns 24 next week. We can only hope he gets to fulfill his birthday wish.

As someone going through the (dare I say) final stages of ACL rehab, these exercises look all too familiar (and painful):