Smiling Dos Santos thanks fans after successful surgery follows horrific injury

Mexico star Giovani dos Santos has thanked fans for their support, and vowed to come back stronger, after suffering a horrific injury playing for Club America in a Liga MX game.

The former Barcelona and Tottenham player only signed for America in July, ending a four-year spell in MLS with the LA Galaxy. His last two seasons in Los Angeles had been plagued by injury, and the club had voided his contract in March.

He was working himself back to fitness, playing for the first time in his home country, and had scored one goal in his first five appearances for America.

Dos Santos started in Saturday night’s ‘El Clasico National’ against Chivas Guadalajara but his involvement was ended before half-time after a dangerous tackle by Chivas defender Antonio Bresino left the 30-year-old with a grisly injury.

Bresino was sent off and America went on to win 4-1, with Chivas ending up with nine men.

Dos Santos was upbeat after surgery, sharing a picture of himself smiling in his hospital bed.

“Thank you all for your messages and prayers!” Dos Santos tweeted.

“Everything went very well Thank God! I will come back soon and stronger.”

The forward will have been buoyed by the news his injury was not as serious as first thought.

Club America initially thought that their star man would be shown to have broken his knee when he was sent for scans.

However the medical images showed no such damage, though the wound will still rule Dos Santos out for around six weeks.

“After submitting Giovani dos Santos to a first medical evaluation,” the club said in a tweet, “the player shows a wound in the quadriceps of the right thigh.

“A bone lesion is ruled out. He is undergoing surgery and a recovery time of six weeks is estimated.”

Head coach Miguel Herrera conceded Dos Santos’ horrid gash affected his team-mates after half-time but was happy they could shrug it off to emerge comfortable winners.

“We did a very good first half, for 10 minutes of the second half we were a little distracted by Gio. However, we resumed and we were better,” he said at a press conference.