Australia and Chelsea forward Sam Kerr has suffered an ACL injury ending her season prematurely.
Chelsea Women have gone to Morocco for a warm-weather training camp when she sustained the ACL injury. She is set to go and be assessed by a specialist and she will then begin her rehabilitation journey with the Chelsea club doctors.
Sam Kerr is one of the most important players in the Chelsea side as she has scored 99 goals in 128 appearances and also whilst she has been at the club she has helped them to win 4 WSL titles, 3 FA Cups, 2 Women's League Cups and the Community Shield.
She also in this current campaign has scored 4 goals in 8 games in the WSL season and she has also been as been extremely important in the Champions League with 5 goals in just 4 games that have helped them to top the group by 1 point with a clash at Stamford Bridge with European giants Real Madrid and a trip to the French Capital to face Paris FC in the coming weeks.
She holds many individual accolades such as 2 time Golden Boot winner and she also finished as runner-up in the Ballon d'Or just behind Barcelona's Aitana Bonmati last year.
Also, she will miss vital games for Australia as they play Uzbekistan in the Olympic qualifiers and should they win them she will also miss the Paris Olympic Games in the summer.
Matilda's coach Tony Gustavsson has also left his message of support for the captain when he said "Sam's guidance and influence on the team is significant and will be an incredible loss for the national team."
Sadly the three letters strike yet another blow to women's football just proving the need for more research into the prevention and understanding of ACL injuries in the top female footballers. After Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and Vivianne Miedema all suffered the same fate and both Viv and Beth have just made their returns in recent weeks from long injury lay-offs and Leah Williamson isn't that far off her come back either after her injury in April 2023.