KIlian Mbappé, who is suffering from a posterior cruciate ligament injury in his left knee, has sought help from renowned French doctor Bertrand Sonnerie Côté, one of the world’s most renowned traumatologists for treating knee injuries in elite athletes.Sonnelly Cottet has extensive experience with this type of injury and has treated many top athletes. Among them are Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who underwent surgery after sustaining a serious knee injury in 2022, and central defender Muktar Diahavi, who recently turned French specialist and was seriously injured in an accident with Choameny in the Valencia-Real Madrid match.
The surgeon has also maintained a long-standing relationship with Real Madrid, especially since treating Karim Benzema in 2014. His reputation in European football has made him one of the go-to doctors for complex ligament injuries. He performs over 600 anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and multiple ligament reconstructions each year. Among his patients was Neymar.
According to the European Society of Sports Trauma, his day-to-day work focuses on “specific treatment of muscle and soft tissue injuries of the knee.” He is also a consultant orthopedic surgeon at Center Orthopedics Santi, FIFA’s medical center of excellence in Lyon.
Fernando Álvarez told MARCA that one of the most memorable cases of his career was the recovery of a skier who dislocated both knees after falling hard at 120km/h during a competition. Sonnelly Cotet himself reported this case in a paper published in the scientific journal Orthopedic Journal of Sports in 2019. In the study, the patient explained that he was “able to ski again four months after the accident” and was able to compete again with a nearly normal knee 666 days (22 months) later.
The skier, whose name does not appear in the scientific paper, is Valentin Gilot-Moine, a native of Gap, France, who had two podiums at the Alpine Ski World Cup before his injury. The accident occurred in Garmisch in January 2017, when he lost control and hit a fence, causing both knees to dislocate. After his diagnosis, he heard a discouraging prognosis. “At best, I’ll be able to become a ski instructor,” the athlete himself recalled in L’Equipe. However, he decided to put himself in the hands of Lyon specialists, who managed to get him back into the World Cup matches. “This is a miracle of sports medicine,” the French doctor told Sports Daily.
With such a background and experience in dealing with complex ligament injuries, Mbappe is in the hands of one of the world’s most renowned experts to treat his knee injury.
