Hugo Lloris was at the center of one of the scariest and most puzzling scenes of the 2013-14 Premier League season on Saturday.
The Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper was knocked out cold when his face collided with the knee of Everton’s 220-pound striker Romelu Lukaku. Yet, he returned to the game and helped his team secure a scoreless draw, despite suffering a concussion.
In the 78th minute, Lukaku and Lloris were chasing a ball in the Tottenham area and they arrived at the same time. The sliding Lloris met the full force of Lukaku’s knee, and the impact rendered him unconscious. He lay face-down and motionless on the field during those harrowing moments shortly after the collision.
Team doctors, who helped Lloris regain consciousnesses and walk off the field, advised Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas to take Lloris out of the game, but the French goalkeeper had other ideas. He convinced Villas-Boas to let him play on, as backup Brad Friedel prepared to take his place, according to Sky Sports.
“The medical department was giving me signs that the player couldn’t carry on, because he couldn’t remember where he was,” Villas-Boas said. “That is the situation right now — he doesn’t remember the impact.
“But he was quite focused and determined to continue, so when you see this kind of assertiveness it means he is able to carry on, and that is why it was my call to delay the substitution.
“You have to make a decision in situations like this but from my knowledge of Hugo he seemed okay to continue.
“It was a dreadful situation. You can imagine the impact of a knee going against a goalkeeper’s head.”
In fact, Lukaku appears to have came off worse in this collision, as he injured his right knee and left the game.
The referee added nine minutes of injury time to the game because of the incident involving Lloris and Lukaku. Lloris made two saves in the last 20 minutes to preserve the point for visiting Tottenham and, perhaps, vindicate Villas-Boas’ decision.
See Lloris and Lukaku collide below.
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GIF via USA Today
Photo via Facebook/Hugo Lloris
