Arjen Robben has always been one of my favorite players since he was on Chelsea and now that he's at Bayern Munich, Shimer has grown to love the injury-prone but incredibly skilled Dutchman.
Coming off a superb 2010 World Cup (minus two breakaways he couldn't bury against Spain in the final) comes the terrible news that Robben will miss the next two months for Bayern.
This story gets messy since the German club claims that Robben was injured in a Netherlands warm-up match before the World Cup and his recovery was sped up, causing a misdiagnosis. Yikes.
The cost of that is now being paid as tests conducted on Tuesday found a tear in the hamstring that was not properly diagnosed earlier.
"It is a clear tear," Bayern club doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt said. "I find it irresponsible that this was not diagnosed accurately and that Arjen has played with it. I offered several times to help with the diagnosis but was not called."
The injury will rule Robben out of the start of the Bundesliga campaign and the opening Champions League matches.
"This diagnosis after my return to Bayern is a shock," Robben said. "I am very disappointed. The enforced break is bitter for me and the team."
Bayern will now seek compensation from the Dutch federation (KNVB) and have asked FIFA to step in as a mediator if necessary.
"Of course, Bayern Munich are very angry," chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said. "Once again we must pay the bill as a club after a player is seriously injured playing for a national team."
If this is true, Robben should be lauded for playing through pain while the Dutch training staff deserves some form of punishment for looking the other way while one of their stars risked serious injury.
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