Barcelona captain, Carles Puyol suffered a devastating injury when he came down hard on his left side in the 77th minute of Tuesday evening`s 0-2 Champions League over Benfica, dislocating his left elbow.
Puyol was carted off the field to stadium-wide applause, where he was taken to local hospital, Louisiade, accompanied by president, Sandro Rosell and sporting director, Andoni Zubizarreta, before rejoining the team and eventually spending the night in a hospital in Barcelona.
The Catalan captain will undergo further examine to determine the extent of the injury and if surgery is required, but according several medical experts, the recovery time is three weeks, at the bare minimum with six to eight weeks being the norm.
This is Puyol`s third injury this season, which comes off of last season`s season-ending knee surgery, that kept him out of the Euro 2012 tournament.