By Dominic Raynor
Crocked Arsenal striker Robin Van Persie is set to have horse placenta massaged into his damaged ankle by a Serbian housewife in a bid to speed up his recovery from a ligament injury, but he is not the only footballer to turn to an alternative remedy. Here we look at some of the more weird treatments.
GOATS' BLOOD
GettyImagesGermany legend Jurgen Klinsmann: One of Dr Muller-Wolfhart's former patients
St Johnstone striker Peter MacDonald approached Bayern Munich's club medic Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt for a little help in recovering from a troublesome hamstring injury and was prescribed a course of goats' blood injections.
"The specialist said my hamstring was too tight and I had goats' blood injections. That's the best for loosening it off," a grateful MacDonald explained.
As well as injecting animal blood Muller-Wolfhart, who is also the doctor for the German national team, claims that an extract from the crest of cockerels, called Hylart, can help lubricate knee injuries and take away the pain. He counts Michael Owen, Jurgen Klinsmann and Arjen Robben amongst his former patients.
VIAGRA
When Bolivian football team Blooming struggled to perform at altitude when playing away in La Paz the club's physiotherapist Rodrigo Figueroa prescribed Viagra to cure their ills.
The physio reasoned that as the sex drug is designed to improve blood flow it could also help players cope with the difficulties of playing at more than 3,500m above sea level. "We prescribed it for several players, especially those who suffered most from altitude," Figueroa explained.
Viagra is not on the banned substance list and has reportedly been game tested by a number of South American clubs during Copa Libertadores matches at high altitude.
THE TOOTH
Following a season-and-a-half of teething problems in English football £13.5 million Chelsea winger Florent Malouda finally hit form at the start of the 2009-10 season and later revealed that a trip to the dentist had cured him of his malaise.
The Frenchman finally got to the root of his troubles when he had his wisdom teeth removed, which helped to clear up some lingering niggles and muscle problems.
Since Malouda's wonder cure a number of other footballers have gone under the dentist's knife, including placenta loving Van Persie. "My osteopaths think there may be a connection between my teeth and the muscle injuries I suffer," the Dutchman said.
BABY REPAIR KIT
According to a report in the Sunday Times a number of Premier League footballers have taken the highly unusual step of storing stem cells from their newborn babies to use in case they suffer career-threatening injuries.
The process involves freezing cells taken from the umbilical cord blood of their babies and can be used to treat - and even possibly cure - cartilage and ligament problems.
An anonymous player explained: "We decided to store our new baby's stem cells for possible future therapeutic reasons... as a footballer, if you're prone to injury it can mean the end of your career, so having your stem cells - a repair kit if you like - on hand makes sense."
VOODOO v SHAMANISM
When a voodoo priest named Pepe revealed in the Spanish press that had been hired to use his black-magic to injure £80 million Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo, who was subsequently sidelined with ankle knack, a number of magicians stepped forward to cure the winger.
A Portuguese wizard, named Fernando Nogueira, took first crack at healing his countryman but the winger remained sidelined despite Nogueira's sorcery and Pepe responded by increasing the strength of his spell.
A band of Peruvian shamans were next to try and lift the injury curse and gathered outside the Spanish Embassy in Lima to perform a cleansing ritual, involving a bizarre combination of swords and maracas, but Ronaldo remained sidelined.
FAITH HEALING
Former England player and manager Glenn Hoddle maintained an unshakeable belief in faith healing after Eileen Drewery nursed him through injury while he was a young player at Tottenham Hotspur.
Hoddle hired the housewife as a consultant during the 1998 World Cup to cure the players of a range of physical and psychological ailments, but unfortunately the squad did not share his belief and his authority was undermined.
Hoddles devotion to spiritualism, love and forgiveness may have kept him free from injury but it didn't keep him in a job; he was sacked in 1999.
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