Otto Addo To Undergo Surgery Today

Black Stars midfielder Otto Addo will undergo the third cruciate ligament surgery in his career as a footballer today, in the German city of Bad Griesbach.

The third cruciate knee ligament injury was suffered in Borussia Dortmund?s Uefa Cup tie against Vienna on 24 September 2003. The 28-year-old BVB player confirmed this statement by his doctors to the newspaper "Ruhr Nachrichten".

He said : "the doctors have told me that the transplantation of a bone from the hip to the knee has worked out brilliantly,"

So, the spectre of "sports disability" should be a thing of the past for Otto Addo. The newspaper also said: "Addo?s career depended on the success of the surgery carried out by knee specialist Dr J?rgen Eichborn in November.

The bone, to which the cruciate ligament was twice anchored, had provided only little stability. Before doing a third cruciate ligament operation, a part of the hip bone had to be transplanted into the knee.

Last week, Dr Eichborn took a look at the pictures of the Gr?nemeyer Institute and then told Addo, who has a contract with Borussia Dortmund until the summer of 2004: ?In a short while we can devote our attention to the actual surgery."

Addo said: "I can now be treated like a normal cruciate ligament patient, and the rehabilitation period is not supposed to take longer than usual." After undergoing another knee surgery today, Addo hopes to be back in action in six to seven months.

Meanwhile Stephen Appiah is expected to travel to Germany soon to visit Otto Addo and offer the support of the national team players. A source close to the Juventus midfielder has it that, the visit would be at the end of the month.