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The original was posted on /r/soccer by /u/TheAthletic on 2026-04-18 08:52:04+00:00.
It comes out of nowhere. Like being shot by a sniper. Some people even recall hearing a loud pop, like a gunshot. Others simply feel it; a sudden, intense pain in the back of their lower leg as their Achilles snaps in two.
For Liverpool striker Hugo Ekitike it came in the most innocuous of circumstances. Just an attempted change of direction - with nobody near him.
The Athletic spoke to experts, including a surgeon who has repaired more than 500 Achilles tendons, about the painstaking rehab ahead for Ekitike and why it’s seen as ‘the worst injury in football’.