After a career-threatening knee injury, the national defender is on the verge of making a comeback to football

It was a tear less than a centimetre long – 0.88cm to be exact.

But that was enough for national defender Ismail Yunos to hear these dreaded words from six different doctors: Your football career may be over.

He was just 22.

Now 23, the Home United player shares the pain of his 13-month battle with a little-known cartilage injury called osteochondral lesion of the femoral condyle, and his optimism of a successful comeback.

On Friday, his surgeon Dr Mitra Amit Kanta, the senior consultant at the Singapore General Hospital’s department of orthopaedic surgery, gave the defender the green light to go for the Beep Test.

It is the S-League’s mandatory multi-stage shuttle run test that gauges match fitness. He hopes to take it before the month’s end.

“Weeeeeeeee!” he wrote on his Facebook account within minutes of receiving the good news.
 
“For the past year, I was demoralised, my confidence was very low, I couldn’t think properly, I couldn’t sleep properly and I lost my appetite,” Ismail said.
 
On March 4 last year, when Home were trailing 1-2 against Singapore Armed Forces FC, Ismail felt a sharp pain in his right knee.

He could not remember much of the incident except that friends had told him that he had fallen awkwardly when tackled from behind.
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Asking to be substituted was never an option for the 1.82m tall defender. He said: “If you’re a professional, you have to tolerate pain.

“Previously, I had played on with a torn medial cruciate ligament (knee) and a torn hamstring. Both times, I recovered within a month.”

But it gradually dawned on him that something was indeed very wrong in the second half.

“My right knee was swollen and numb,” he recalled. “The joint was locked and I couldn’t even run. But the team had already used up all three subs.”

For the next two weeks, the versatile defender, who can play anywhere across the back four, struggled at training but thought that his injury was only a contusion.

When he was still unable to run after ultrasound treatment, he was sent for an MRI scan and the full extent of the damage was revealed.

The doctor told Ismail that he had suffered a 0.88cm rupture in the cartilage. His posterior and anterior cruciate ligaments were strained as well.

It was the same injury that forced former national defender Robin Chitrakar to retire in 2003 at the age of 26.

Chitrakar, the 1996 Young Player of the Year, said: “The cartilage first tore in 2000 but I recovered after surgery. That didn’t last. Three years later, the injury was back and I never came back.”

For the next three months, Ismail, who won a bronze medal at the 2007 South-east Asia Games, consulted six doctors.

All told him the same thing.

Ismail said: “They tried to put it very nicely. I guess they just didn’t want to break my heart. They said that there was an opportunity to make a comeback but there were no guarantees. They also said that I should face the facts.”

Refusing to admit defeat, he did his own homework by trawling the web. “Jamie Redknapp (the former Liverpool captain) and Ledley King (from Spurs) are famous players who suffered this injury,” he said.

“But players like King and Redknapp had already played at the highest level and made millions. I’m just a young guy starting out, earning a tiny fraction of what they earned and still far from achieving my goals in football.

“I was nominated for the S-League’s Young Player of the Year award in 2008. I thought maybe 2009 could be my year. And I wanted to win medals for my club and country.”

Ismail’s determination to succeed could perhaps be traced to his formative years. His father Yunos Aziz is a taxi driver, and mother Rosni, a masseuse, is now semi-retired.

Rosni once pawned her jewellery to raise money to buy new boots for her son.

As a promising Tampines Rovers Centre of Excellence prospect, he had to run from his Bedok Reservoir flat to Tampines Stadium because he could not afford bus fare.

“At least, when I reached the stadium, I was warmed up,” he joked.

His rise was rapid. In 2004, he was called up for the national Under-18s.

Within two years, he progressed to the Under-21s, made the Young Lions squad, then the Singapore B squad and finally the full national team. He made his Lions debut in the 2006 King’s Cup in Bangkok.

Ismail said: “My father, who did not approve of me playing football, started to come and watch me play. My whole family was behind me. Then the injury struck.”

Hope arrived last June when former Lions captain Fandi Ahmad recommended Dr Mitra to Ismail.

“I spoke to former players like Fandi, Robin and Abbas Saad,” Ismail said. “Abbas said he tore his cartilage three times and came back each time. Fandi tore his cartilage and still played until 38.

“It was such a relief to hear their encouragement.”

Dr Mitra declined to be interviewed, but Dr Chang Haw Chong, who had operated on national footballers Noh Alam Shah and Shaiful Esah, agreed that the microfracture procedure performed on Ismail was a good option.

“Microfracture is effective as it can speed up the healing process. But the athlete must respect the six months healing period. From my experience, footballers tend to rush back from injury,” he said.

Ismail is not taking any chances.

Since his 45-minute operation on Sept 10, he has been following a structured fitness plan geared to getting him back to combat-shape.

Almost daily, he trains at the National Football Academy gym with Lions fitness coach Aleksandar Bozenko. He regularly consults Lions physio Yeo Hwee Koon and sees Dr Mitra for regular reviews.

“My return is on the horizon,” he said. “Dr Mitra has already cleared me and now, I’m waiting for the club to clear me.

“I thank everyone who has helped me on this long road to recovery.

“The phobia is there. I’m afraid of what might happen when I jump.

“But in my first game back, if there is a 50-50 ball to be challenged, I will have to push all my doubts aside and just go for it.”