Dejan Kulusevski rejected knee transplant and key Zlatan Ibrahimovic advice changed everything in injury hell

Dejan Kulusevski discussed having a full knee transplant during his nightmare injury recovery – but he turned it down. Kulusevski spent more than 500 days on the sidelines after suffering a serious knee injury at the end of the 2024/25 season. He suffered damage to his right patella and the cartilage within it, forcing him down a long road back to fitness that included two failed operations. But the Tottenham winger incredibly managed to come out the other side of his rehabilitation, returning to action last month. Kulusevski played his first minutes of competitive football since May 2025 against Coventry City on October 19. Since then, he has made three more appearances for Spurs off the bench, as he works his way back up to speed. It was a horrendous, long journey for the 26-year-old, who has received many deserved plaudits for his resilience. And he has now revealed more details about his recovery , admitting that a knee replacement was a possibility for him at one stage. Kulusevski rejected full knee transplant Speaking to Swedish outlet Fotbollskanalen, Kulusevski explained: “The answer to why it took so long is that there are people who have never even come back from injuries like this. “Above all, we should be happy that it was possible to come back. There are many who have stopped playing their sport due to cartilage damage. “Why it took so long is that we don’t know more. We did what we thought was best and it didn’t work. After that we had to try another operation . Then many people were nervous when they realized that it didn’t seem to work either. “I spent the whole summer talking to other doctors about having another operation. It would have been a knee transplant. “I would have exchanged my knee for someone else’s. I said no. If I’m in pain when I play, then I’ll have to play with pain. “I trained and tried to live like a normal person. I trusted that it would work out. So far I’ve been right.” The Spurs star also revealed that if he has said yes to the transplant, he would have spent potentially another 18 months out. “Nobody has ever come back from that, it’s 50/50’,” he said. “I was like: ‘No, I don’t want to take it’.” Ibrahimovic advice helped Kulsevski recover Kulusevski added that Sweden legend Zlatan Ibrahimovic helped him decide what to do after rejected the transplant. He was advised by the ex- Paris Saint-German , Barcelona and Manchester United striker to go and see a specialist in Serbia about his knee. And he did, explaining: “Zlatan and (Ivan) Perisic wanted me to go there. I went there, and the Serb was important to me. “He said: ‘Don’t think about other operations, we’re going to do this’. He was so sure of himself that it would work. I needed someone by my side who told me: ‘Dejan, this will work’.” On how he eventually found a solution to his injury, Kulusevski said: “Every day I tried to find out the answer, I couldn’t understand. “But when we found out, it was complicated and not easy to solve. In the end, I got incredible help from many people involved. “It’s really not just one person who helped me, I still work with maybe eight people today. There are many people who helped me. “It was the nervous system, it was more than an injury. A deep, deep expertise from someone who is really good with the body and could resolve traumatised situations that happened to the body (helped) and after that the pain went away.” Did Kulusevski think he’d never play again? Kulusevski further discussed the torture of his recovery too, opening up on whether he ever doubted that he could handle it . “It hurt so much to walk up stairs,” he said. “I trained ten hours a day but it didn’t work, it didn’t matter what I did. Then I started thinking: ‘If it’s over, it’s over’. “So I had to tell my mother: ‘I don’t think it’s going to work’. To prepare her and the family. But in those days, things changed. And then when things got better, I felt like I could handle it. The Sweden international continued: “There were many who didn’t believe it, many were sceptical. Even at the club. “But in the end I showed that I was getting better and stronger. And convinced them too. “Whoever said I wouldn’t come back doesn’t know me. You could use that (talk) as fuel. But I believed in myself.”