'The Bad Back Brigade'

Posted Monday, October 14, 2013 by Marca.com

If Gareth Bale is seeking a precedent when it comes to discs, he need look no further than Chelsea defender John Terry, who also suffered from the same problem as the Welshman, and who, following an operation, recovered completely inside three months. And he is not the only one.

Yaya Touré got injured while playing in the Africa Cup, at the beginning of March, but he suffered three months of pain, alleviated by infiltrations so as to avoid going under the knife during the season. He had an operation in May and is now on top form at Manchester City.

The case of Santi Cazorla is perhaps the saddest, as he missed out on being part of Spain's World Cup squad because of a lumbar disc hernia. At first he was given unlimited leave and tried to avoid an operation, but in the end he had no option but to go ahead with it.

Gianluigi Buffon also had problems with a disc hernia which meant that he underwent an operation once Italy was out of the South Africa World Cup, after the first stage.

In May 2011 Hamit Altintop signed for Real Madrid, and before June was out, he had to be operated on for a problem in his L3-L4 vertebrae with a slight disc prolapse. Doctors tried preventive treatment which didn't work.