Jaime Sanchez was a soccer player for Texas Elite United. He has played there for about 4-5 years and has been a very important player for the club. He has a very big tournament coming up out of the state. His team had a few pre-season games before heading out to England for the tournament in 1 month.

             As he is playing one of his pre-season games he is dribbling the ball, all of a sudden a player from the opposing team slides tackles him and his knee bent inward and he couldn’t continue the game.After he gets carried out of the field, the trainer checks him. She tells him the unfortunate news that he has a serious injury and might miss his upcoming tournament. He then begins to get upset and he cries.  After the game is done he heads home, he lets his parents know what happened and they tell him to try to do as much as possible to get cleared to play. Jaime is still in so much pain. 

              The day after, his mom took him to the doctors to get his knee checked out. The news he received was not the ones he wanted to hear.” Unfortunately your chances of playing in England are very low” said Dr.Olivares. Jaime and his mom then left the doctors. The whole car ride home was silent. Jaime really wanted to play in this tournament as it was his chance to get scouted and take a big step in his soccer career.

              He believed it wasn’t anything major so the next day he asked his mom to take him to a professional massagist. As he was getting the massage he flinched and said ‘wait’, he did this about 5 times when the massagist then told him the pain seemed to be too much for it to be healed by just a massage. They left the massagist place. Once again a silent car ride back home. 1 week left for the tournament. 

           The last thing he tries is icing his knee for the whole week. The ice does help a little by numbing the pain, but only for a while then the pain comes back. October 13, 2001 a day before the tournament and Jaime  decides that he will be playing in the tournament without getting cleared yet. He shares his decision with his mom, but she doesn’t like the idea of that. He still didn’t change his mind. He told his mom “I’m not going to be an Ingrate, it’s a minor injury, there are people who actually don’t have a leg to even be playing”.So first game day comes and he is getting ready and his mom is still trying to convince him to not play, but Jaime is not changing his mind. 

             The game starts and Jaime isn’t in the starting line-up. The whole first half his coach doesn’t substitute him in. At halftime his coach asks him if he’s sure he wants to play, and with no hesitation he said yes. His coach then puts him in for the second half. 15 minutes go by and everything seems to be going good. He passes the ball to his teammate and his teammate shoots the ball, the opposings team goalie blocks it and sends it for a corner kick. Jaime gets in the box for the corner kick to go up for a header. As he went up for the header his landing was the last thing he was expecting. He landed on his left leg with the bad knee. When he landed his knee popped. He bursted out into tears from the pain on his knee. Once again he had to abandon the field not knowing it might have been his last time. 

            His mom then had to rush him to the emergency room. He knew it was something serious now. They get called to a doctor's room. X Rays were made. The doctors came back with the results. “Unfortunately you do have a torn ACL”. This is one of the worst soccer injuries you could ever get. Surgery is needed for this type of injury. “How long is the recovery process?” asked Jaime. “Around 9 months to a year” said the doctor. Jaime knew that his soccer career was over as he didn’t get the chance to show off his skills and his talent in the tournament with all the scouts.