Luis Suarez's stomp ended goalkeeper's career as joint 'exploded into pieces'

Spanish goalkeeper , caused by an accidental encounter with .

Back in January 2022 during a Copa del Rey match-up between Atletico Madrid and Rayo Majadahonda, Giralt's hand was severely injured after the icon stepped on it. Recounting the episode on "El Chiringuito", he described his injury graphically.

"My joint exploded into pieces, like a walnut," Giralt said on the show. tries to finish with a goal, but unfortunately, he steps on the joint of one of my hands."

Despite the end of his active playing days, now turned goalkeeping coach at Las Rozas, Giralt bears no ill will towards Suarez, even noting the Uruguayan's gesture of apology and the gift of his match shirt thereafter.

Despite undergoing three surgeries to fix his hand, Giralt shared with Marca the immediate aftermath of the injury. He added, per Marca: "At that moment, I didn't feel it and the first thing I did was check if the ball had gone out. After that my hand started to get cramped. When I took off the glove it moved very strangely... in jumps. I was very unlucky, but I don't think about it."

Suarez, for all his soccer genius, is no stranger to controversy, and this incident adds another story to his tumultuous journey in the game, reminiscent of past episodes including the biting event at the 2010 World Cup.

In a dramatic turn during the quarterfinal, Uruguay and Ghana were deadlocked at 1-1 when Dominic Adiyiah's goal-bound header was infamously blocked by Suarez's hand on the line. The resulting red card for Suarez didn't prevent Asamoah Gyan from smashing the penalty against the bar, allowing Uruguay to eventually triumph in the shootout and march into the semifinals.

Suarez first made headlines with his teeth back in 2010 while playing for Ajax. In a heated moment against PSV Eindhoven, he tried to bite Otman Bakkal, earning an internal reprimand from Ajax and a seven-game suspension from the Dutch FA.

But Suarez didn't stop there; he had further biting incidents involving Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic and Italy's Giorgio Chiellini. The Premier League handed him a 10-game ban for the Ivanovic incident, which the officials missed, allowing Suarez to score a crucial equaliser in that match.

His bite on Chiellini during the 2014 World Cup earned him a nine-match international ban, although he completed the game and saw Uruguay through to the knockout stages. Suarez later issued an apology to Chiellini, referring to it as "the physical result of a bite in the collision he suffered with me."