William Saliba reportedly played through the World Cup with a broken back.
RMC Sport revealed this week that the Arsenal defender had been carrying a back fracture for over two months before the tournament even began.
He played through it relying on strong painkillers and following a carefully managed training programme.
But during France’s semi-final defeat to Spain, his body finally gave out. “My back is gone,” he told Dayot Upamecano as he collapsed to the ground.
Arsenal fans are furious, understandably. A player with a back fracture should not be playing football at any level, let alone at a World Cup.
Arsenal fans, what’s your message to Mikel Arteta and Didier Deschamps for making William Saliba play with a broken back?
Whether the blame lies with France’s medical staff, Arsenal’s, or the player himself for pushing through is debatable.
But it’s a huge concern. You only have to look at a previous French centre-back who played through a World Cup with injury, and how it derailed his entire career.
William Saliba’s ‘broken back’ draws a worrying parallel with Samuel Umtiti’s career
Samuel Umtiti went to the 2018 World Cup in Russia needing knee surgery, which Barcelona urged him to have an operation on.
He refused, choosing to play for France, and went on to score the winner in the semi-final against Belgium before lifting the trophy in the final.
But he was never the same player again.
Umtiti made just 41 league appearances in the four entire seasons that followed. Two knee operations in 2024 failed to fix the damage sustained in 2018.
He retired early at 31, having gone, in his own words, from “the mountain to the very bottom.”
Speaking to The Sun, he described bouts of depression, not leaving his house, training two or three times a day in desperate attempts to get fit. But none of it worked, and his knee was always swollen.
The parallel with William Saliba is impossible to ignore. A brilliant young French defender, playing through serious pain to help his country at a World Cup, all to potentially pay a catastrophic long-term price for it.
Back injuries are among the most serious and least predictable in football. Once the damage is done, it rarely goes away.
If Arsenal are to be without Saliba for a chunk of next season, they have to act in the transfer market now.
Links to Aston Villa defender Ezri Konsa are encouraging, and the club may now have to reconsider a potential Ben White sale.
Hopefully, surgery goes well and Saliba’s recovery is managed properly and carefully, but Arsenal must plan for every outcome.
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