Spain have confirmed captain and Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas has suffered an ACL injury which will rule her out of Euro 2022.
The Barcelona midfielder, last season’s Champions League top goalscorer, was injured during a training session on Tuesday.
La Roja later announced scans had confirmed a rupture of the ACL in her left knee.
A statement on the Spanish Football Federation website read: “Alexia Putellas suffers a torn anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.
Shane Horgan’s Six Nations prediction almost comes true, while Off The Ball comments make BBC coverage
Sam Prendergast is both enthralling and enraging and everything else we learned from Ireland’s win over Wales
Death of a jockey: ‘Michael O’Sullivan was full of ambition, full of passion ... he was just a beautiful person’
From The Cowshed to Abbotstown: the odyssey of the Irish Indoor Championships
“The tests carried out on the Spanish international on the afternoon of this Tuesday July 5 2022 at King Edward VII’s hospital in London, have confirmed that the captain of the Spanish women’s national team has suffered a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.”
Spain, already without veteran forward Jennifer Hermoso through her own knee problem, are set to open their Group B campaign against Finland in Milton Keynes on Friday.
