Ronaldo's two years of injury hell before Brazil star returned to win World Cup

If ever a player's career could be described as having been blighted by injuries, it is former Brazil striker Ronaldo, who 22 years ago suffered the first of a series of terrible knee injuries.

Spells at PSV Eindhoven and Barcelona had established Ronaldo as one of the top forwards in the game, scoring an astonishing 101 goals in his three seasons at those two clubs.

Those goals earned him a then-world record move to Serie A giants Inter Milan, where he continued his form with 49 strikes in his first two campaigns, winning the 1998 UEFA Cup.

But his time at Inter hit major problems at the start of his third season at the San Siro when he suffered his first serious knee injury during a Serie A clash with Lecce.

He had assisted one of Inter's goals in a 6-0 win for the hosts, before being forced off after 59 minutes.

According to the star's former physiotherapist Nilton Petrone, Inter had already been monitoring his knees before that infamous day.

"At the beginning of 1999, Inter had already called Dr Saillant to monitor Ronaldo's tendons, both in the right and the left kneecap," he told FourFourTwo in 2018.

"It was known that the degeneration was relatively big but no one thought about surgery before his injury. Ronaldo was about to spin and then suddenly stopped.

"He asked to be replaced and walked normally but when I arrived in the locker room and bent his knee I saw that the centre of the tendon was ripped. This was Ronaldo's first injury.

"I did the monitoring and then he went to Paris to have an operation with Dr Saillant. We then did all the rehabilitation monitoring and at the beginning of every month we would go to Paris."

Despite that major injury it took just five months for Ronaldo to return to the pitch, though Petrone has stated that Inter were stringent about making sure he was ready.

"Around the beginning of April, we started to think that he was training normally," he told FourFourTwo.

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"He was playing and had already been released by the doctor who performed the surgery and told he could possibly make his return to the pitch.

"At the beginning of that month we travelled, with Dr. Franco Combi, who was Inter's doctor, to talk to Dr. Saillant about the possibility of Ronaldo playing in the final of the Italian Cup against Lazio.

"We took Ronaldo to Paris to see the doctor and he said that it was okay for him to play. We asked him how much time he would be able to play for and he said 15 to 20 minutes."

Ronaldo was duly brought on for the final 32 minutes of the first leg of the final against Lazio, but would tragically be forced off after only six minutes.

The striker latched onto a flick on and attempted a trademark step over on the edge of the box, but collapsed in a heap.

Lazio kicked the ball out of play as it quickly became apparent that the Brazilian had suffered a devastating knee injury.

Petrone has made it clear that this injury was one of the worst ever suffered by a footballer, something that would see him ruled out for nearly two years.

"When he returned for that match, he ripped the knee-cap tendon completely. His knee-cap actually exploded and it ended up in the middle of his thigh," Petrone told FourFourTwo.

"If I showed you the photos I have from this case you wouldn't believe it. Right after the surgery his knee was the size of a football ball.

"We had a few moments at the hospital when he was crying because he wanted morphine to stop the intensity of pain.

"I was there, at the beginning of a rehabilitation when the whole world was saying that he wouldn't be able to. The science said it was unlikely and the doctors had doubts."

So began nearly two years of gruelling rehabilitation work, with Ronaldo working on his recovery for up to 10 hours a day without a break.

Ronaldo himself has since reflected on how challenging that period was as he worked himself back to fitness.

"It was sheer agony, it was a very tough period. My family, the physios and the doctors encouraged me to preserver and it was worth it," the Brazilian told FIFA.com.

"Furthermore, I became a father for the first time at that time and this was a really important motivation for me.

"The birth of my son Ronald gave me the strength that I needed to withstand that endless torture."

His recovery would take the rest of that season, as well as the entirety of the 2000/2001 campaign, with Ronaldo failing to play again until September 2001.

The decision to keep him from playing was a deliberate one though, according to Petrone.

"It was questioned whether he would come back or not, and if he did there was a chance he wouldn't be a high-level player anymore," he told FourFourTwo.

"We were very careful to make sure he didn't return too soon. The goal was for him to still have a long career, and that's why he missed the 2000-01 season.

"There were a lot of doubts about him coming back, so he had to fight not only with himself but also the media, who predicted that his career was over."

Contrary to those pundit views though, Ronaldo would make a stunning comeback from that dreadful injury.

While he would suffer several hamstring problems in the first campaign he returned, Ronaldo was able to score seven goals in 10 games.

He did enough to prove himself to the Brazilian national team to be picked for the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.

The striker would produce one of the best performances in World Cup history, scoring eight goals across the tournament to fire his side to their fifth World Cup title, including a double in the final.

The significance of that win was not lost on Ronaldo, who hailed it as a just reward for more than two years of recovery work.

"I worked for two and a half years to recover from injuries and God reserved this day for me and for the Brazilian national team," he said.

"I've said before that my big victory was to play football again, to run again and to score goals again. This victory, for our fifth world title, has crowned my recovery and the work of the whole team."

Immediately after that tournament he moved to Real Madrid, though injuries would catch up to him following 2006, with one of the greatest strikers of all time retiring in 2011.