The mysterious injury woe afflicting Renato Sanches

Renato Sanches is injured again. It is a line that has been written dozens of times since the teenage Benfica star culminated an explosive debut season in senior football with a high-profile transfer to Bayern Munich in the summer of 2016.

Having played a significant role in Benfica winning the Primeira Liga and Portugal winning the European Championship, Sanches left Portugal for the Bundeliga as the most sought-after young footballer on the planet and seemingly with the world at his feet. 

Alas, he has never hit the same heights again. His latest setback is just the most recent in an endless battle to remain fit for any length of time. 

Sanches limped out of Benfica’s training session under new coach Bruno Lage on Tuesday with a hamstring injury. The initial prognosis suggests he will miss at least three matches: the Primeira Liga clashes against Santa Clara and Boavista and Benfica’s Champions League opener against Crvena Zvezda in Belgrade next Thursday. He is also a doubt for the following games against Gil Vicente and Atlético Madrid. 

Sanches has played just 64 minutes for the Eagles since returning to Lisbon on loan from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, coming on as second-half substitute against both Estrela da Amadora and Moreirense.

Homecoming

Given Sanches’ horrendous injury record, it was always a risk for Benfica re-signing the 27-year-old. But president Rui Costa was adamant that he believed the move would work out. Costa was especially keen to bring back a player who is hugely popular among the fans in the wake of the sale of the latest golden boy, João Neves, precisely to PSG.

The thinking behind his acquisition was that being back in familiar surroundings, near his family and friends, at the club where it all began so well, could provide the player with the psychological framework needed to help him finally get back to full fitness.

There has never been any suggestion that Sanches’ recurring injuries are caused by a lack of professionalism or an overly zealous extra-football lifestyle. Quite the opposite. José Mourinho praised his application in training and was left at a loss to explain his fitness problems after taking on the player at Roma, only to go through the same experience as almost all his coaches over the last decade, whereby Sanches spends an inordinate amount of time in the treatment room.

“Emotional scars” – Mourinho

“Renato Sanches is always at risk of getting injured,” said Mourinho shortly after Sanches had signed for Roma on loan and had immediately picked up an injury. “It’s difficult to understand. They didn’t understand why at Bayern, they didn’t understand why at PSG and we are trying to understand why.

“In the previous game he played 45 minutes. He rested for three days and now he’s injured again. He felt a muscle problem and had to come off.”

It did not get any better for Sanches in the Italian capital. In a match against Bologna, the midfielder came off the bench for the second half only for Mourinho to substitute him off in the 63rd minute.

“Renato Sanches has emotional scars. He’s afraid because of all the bad luck he’s had. He’s playing at a very, very low intensity. In the previous game, the 60 minutes he played gave me hope and I thought today he would add quality, given the confidence he could have got from the Sheriff game. But I realised this hadn’t happened and I was sorry I had to substitute him,” explained Mourinho.

An inherently physical player, one would never guess Sanches would have such a battle to stay fit after his first season at Benfica. Just 17 years old, his strength and fearlessness when roaring into tackles and body checks was a trademark of his game. Although he only made his first-team debut on 30 October 2015, Sanches played 35 matches in that 2015/16 season.

Lille revival

It remains more games than he has played in any of the nine subsequent campaigns. Only at Lille did Sanches enjoy a relatively injury-free spell, playing 29 games for the Ligue 1 club in 2020/21, helping the French win the league, and 32 matches in 2021/22. In the summer in between, Sanches also came back into the fold for the Seleção and was arguably Portugal’s best player at Euro 2020 (played in 2021 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic).

Apart from his debut season and the happy spell at Lille though, Renato Sanches’s constant fitness problems have prevented him from building momentum in a career that promised so much. The injury history tab of the Transfermarkt website makes for grim reading. 

The Benfica match tomorrow against Santa Clara will be the 135th match Renato Sanches has missed owing to injury or illness.

“Fantastic person, fabulous player”

The good news is that given Sanches burst onto the scene so young, he still has time on side get back to the top of his game. The Lisbon-born player only recently turned 27. Luís Campos, PSG’s Sporting Director believes he can get back on track.

“I know Renato better than almost anybody,” said Campos, speaking at the Thinking Football Summit in Porto this week. “He’s a fantastic person and a fabulous player. Unfortunately, he’s going through a phase when injuries are occurring. All the clubs are trying to help him stop getting injured.

“If Renato was a bad person, a bad professional, he would have been pushed out of football by now, which is a cruel world. Renato is going to get over this phase with the help of all the people who are rooting for him.”

By Tom Kundert