Premier League icon nearly lost his leg days after playing in FA Cup final

A Premier League icon nearly lost his leg after being told he needed emergency surgery following an FA Cup final appearance at Wembley.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who scored 127 goals across Premier League spells with Leeds United, Chelsea, Middlesbrough and Charlton Athletic, made his only FA Cup final appearance in 2002.

Hasselbaink and Chelsea lost 2-0 to Arsenal at the Millennium Stadium, which hosted FA Cup finals while Wembley was being regenerated.

The Netherlands international started the match and played 68 minutes before being replaced by Gianfranco Zola.

Hasselbaink had been a doubt heading into the final due to a hamstring injury which had affected him during the final weeks of the 2001/02 season.

Scans ultimately showed the extent of the injury, which Hasselbaink had attempted to play through, and it ultimately ruled him out of action for four months.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink played 68 minutes in the 2002 FA Cup final (Image: Getty)

Little was known about the exact detail of the injury at the time, and it was not until 2008 when the striker explained just how close it was to changing his life forever.

The striker was speaking before what proved to be his second FA Cup final appearance, this time for Championship side Cardiff City. The Bluebirds went on to lose 1-0 to Portsmouth.

Like in 2002, Hasselbaink started the game, this time held at Wembley, and came off during the second half.

But the aftermath proved to be nowhere near as dramatic as six years earlier.

"I had to come off after about 70 minutes [in 2002] because I had a bad injury, which turned out to be a 75 per cent blocked vein," he told The Guardian's Darren Witcoop.

"I had it before the game, but we didn't know what it was. I thought it was my calf and I could play through it. I had a scan before the final and nothing showed up, so I thought I was all right.

"As we found out later, it was quite bad and I was out for four months, but it could have been much, much worse.

"If the vein had been 80 or 90 per cent blocked, I could have lost the lower half of my right leg."

Rather than it being a typical injury, Hasselbaink admitted that 'nobody knows' what caused it.

It was only the intervention of then Chelsea club doctor, Neil Fraser, that prompted him to visit a specialist, where they were both told just how dangerous the situation was.

"We went first to a different hospital in London, got tested and they said only 25 per cent of the blood was coming through.

"We went to another hospital where there was a vein specialist, and he said I had to be operated on right now."

The striker explained that he was told that taking a flight could have escalated the situation - something that could feasibly have happened given that the FA Cup final was played in the penultimate week of the 2001/02 season.

Chelsea played their final Premier League game the following weekend, with Hasselbaink absent as the Blues lost 3-1 at home to Aston Villa.

He spoke again about the injury ahead of his appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2025.

Hasselbaink has entered football management and participated in Strictly Come Dancing since retirement (Image: Getty)

"It only came to light after I felt an enormous cramp in my leg when walking down the street one day," he explained.

"I panicked because I had never felt something like that before."

"The blockage had come about because something had grown in my artery, cutting off circulation in my leg," Hasselbaink said, after saying that doctors 'couldn't feel any pulse' in his foot.

Hasselbaink was partnered with professional dancer Lauren Oakley on Strictly, and was the fourth celebrity to be eliminated from the competition.