20 Most Embarrassing Injuries in World Football History

Every club, and fans of the club, hate it when the star player picks up an injury.

Even when it's only a squad player, a few weeks out with an irritating strain or knock can sometimes make the difference between having a match winner on your bench and just a fading, aging player to make up the numbers.

A heroic headed clearance off the line, taking a boot in the face for the team, can sometimes make it seem worthwhile losing the player for a while, or perhaps a crunching challenge in the middle of the park against a big rival.

But sometimes, injuries are so moronic, so bizarrely attained that the bearer of bad news to his club can do nothing but offer up the most ridiculous sounding, but truthful, explanation and just accept that they'll be sidelined through stupidity.

Here are the 20 most embarrassing injuries in world football.

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand, at Leeds at the time, missed several weeks after watching TV in one position for too long and trying to reach the phone with his foot, straining his knee tendon in the process.

As if he didn't pick up enough injuries on the pitch as it was.

Who? Ah, that Michael Stensgaard.

Liverpool's reserve goalkeeper never played for the first team, but did manage to dislocate his shoulder in a domestic incident one day.

Upon opening a cupboard in his home, the ironing board came clattering out and landed on his shoulder, costing him several months of sitting on the bench at Anfield.

I thought goalkeepers were meant to have good reactions with their hands?

Santiago Cañizares was all prepared and ready to go to the 2002 World Cup with Spain when he somehow managed to drop a bottle of aftershave, which went hurtling towards the floor.

Not to worry, Cañizares stuck out a foot to bravely save the day—and severed a tendon in his foot in the process.

Back home with you, then.

The modern footballer is something of a pansy, is he not?

Former AC Milan defender Alessandro Nesta apparently suffered a strained wrist tendon after spending too long playing on his PlayStation console.

Can't imagine Franco Baresi coming in with a similar complaint, somehow.

Sometimes a man goes down in folklore, enters into legend, for something so incredibly, wonderfully barmy that it needs no further explanation.

Svein Grondalen, former Norwegian defender, is that man.

The international player missed a meetup and fixture for his national side after colliding while out jogging.

With a moose.

Brilliant.

Who knows what mad thoughts are screaming through big Dave's mind as he lets out a furious roar in this photo.

Maybe it was the memory of dropping a bottle of salad cream on his foot, which saw him sit out injured as he recovered.

Or maybe he was remembering those goals he conceded against Norwich City.

What is it with all these goalkeepers?

Arsenal and England No.1-in-waiting Richard Wright did his prospects no good whatsoever by ludicrously falling over a "please keep off the grass" sign as he warmed up in the goalmouth.

A twisted ankle saw him sidelined for even longer than usual between actual goalkeeping appearances.

Ivano Bonetti is, sadly, not an exotic up-and-coming striker from the continent, but actually a former Grimsby Town player from the mid 1990s.

After an apparent lack of effort one day in a dismal defeat by Sheffield Wednesday, his manager, Brian Laws, decided that the best way to startle some action into his players would be to throw things at them.

Unluckily for Bonetti, Laws had pinpoint accuracy and hurled a plate of chicken wings into his face, fracturing his cheek bone.

How do you even explain this one?

This wasn't a random act of droppery, a mind-numbingly awful accident or a case of the butterfingers such as has befallen our goalkeeping friends, Beasant and Cañizares; this was a willfull drilling of one's own foot because he thought it would make things better.

Darius Vassell, former Aston Villa speedster and England penalty-misser extraordinnaire, had a blood blister beneath a toe nail.

Obviously, the best way to remedy this was to drill through the nail to relieve the pressure, right?

Right...until an infection set in. Unsurprisingly.

An actual on-the-pitch episode of idiocy! Oh, joy unabounded.

Steve Morrow is the hero this time, scoring a goal for Arsenal in the League Cup final of 1993—the winning goal, no less.

In the ensuing celebration, Morrow goes up on the shoulders of his teammates and comes crashing down to the ground, breaking his collarbone in the process.

To have and to hold, etc, etc, until death do us part.

Or, in the case of Paolo Diogo, until an advertising hoarding and my finger do us part.

After scoring a goal over in Italy, Diogo vaulted a fence, but got his ring caught up, tearing off part of the digit. The hospital told him it was impossible to have it reattached and advised removing the rest of it.

Tying shoelaces can be a tricky business... for a five or six-year-old.

German goalkeeper (another one??!) Michael Rensing, however, was marginally older when he ran into trouble doing the same exercise.

In fact, he managed to put his back out while tying them up, missing a few games.

Incidentally, he also caused teammate (and fellow goalkeeper, of course) Oliver Kahn out of action by giving him a black eye in the warm up for a game—booting a ball into his face too hard.

From the Spanish league and Valencia, Ever Banega hit the headlines when he stopped at a gas station to fill his car up.

Sadly, he forgot to apply the handbrake, and when he got out of the car, it moved, pinning him between vehicle and pavement.

A double leg fracture was the end result.

Here's Emerson in action for Brazil in 2002.

There would have been more photos of him in similar poses, as well as one with him lifting the World Cup that summer, but those ones are missing.

You see, Emerson was Brazil's captain going into the tournament, but had a bit of a mess about in goal one training session.

And dislocated his shoulder.

And missed the entire tournament.

Which Brazil won.

"Calamity" James, as he was known early in his career.

The England international won over his critics with a string of outstanding goalkeeping campaigns, but he did manage to pick up one or two bizarre injuries along the way.

James was one of more than a few who have pulled back muscles while reaching for the TV remote, but he also damaged his shoulder while fishing—pulling in a giant carp, apparently.

Here's Peter Schmeichel, doing what he did best: shouting at Manchester United defenders.

Years before the big Dane with the red nose came along, United had another stopper who bawled at his teammates for fun: Alex Stepney.

Except one game, he went a tad too far—and Stepney dislocated his jaw halfway through shouting at them.

Bryan Robson didn't have great luck with injuries.

But after this encounter, perhaps you'd say he didn't help himself.

Just prior to the World Cup in 1990, Robson decided he wanted to rid himself of Gazza, who had been sitting on his bed too long.

Robson lifted up the bed to tip Gascoigne off and dropped the bed on his own toe.

Yes, he missed the finals.

Whether it was a jape gone wrong or he just didn't fancy the flight, nobody knows.

All that is for sure is that Milan Rapaic missed the start of the season with his then-club, Hadjuk Split.

There's no real other way to describe what happened other than to simply tell it: He stuck his boarding pass for the flight into his own eye.

Really.

Wales and Barnsley left-back Darren Barnard bought himself a new puppy.

All very cute and cuddly, for sure.

Until, that is, the dog urinated on the floor of Barnard's house—and he walked straight through it, slipping and tearing his knee in the process.

Five months on the slidelines ensued.

Kasey Keller sports a fine set of teeth in this photo.

It's just a shame that he broke them in his mouth on one memorable occasion, as he took his golf clubs out of his car.

What a fitting way to round off this list of bizarre injuries, with yet another goalkeeper exposing the clan for the bewildering bunch of buffoons that they are.

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