As a sport that involves a lot of running, tackling, stopping and starting, strained leg muscles are extremely common in football. Most professional footballers experience time in the treatment room at some point due to an overstretched, strained, or even torn muscle. World football icon Lionel Messi sustained such an injury during a match for his club, Barcelona, in February 2019, slightly straining the large thigh muscle on the ‘front’ part of the upper leg, called the quadriceps.
Muscle strains are usually initially diagnosed by a physical examination, but methods such as MRI and ultrasound are usually used to get a more precise view of the injury in order to plan and monitor the period of recovery. In Messi’s case, his injury was examined almost immediately with the club’s portable ultrasound scanner. You can read more about Messi’s ultrasound experience here.
On MRI, a thigh strain may look something like this:
Note: image is an example – not that of the athlete named above.
The area of injury, where the muscle fibres have been damaged, can be seen quite clearly on MRI (arrow). A trained radiologist can determine the severity of the injury and judge which muscles or ligaments may be affected and will pass on a detailed report that helps to decide the recommended treatment options, as well as the likely length of recovery.
For more information about thigh injuries, click here.