Goalkeeper Danny Vukovic will miss the start of the Socceroos' World Cup qualifying campaign, and most likely the majority of the European football season, after he ruptured his achilles.
In more bad news for Australian national team coach Graham Arnold, winger Martin Boyle will have surgery on a knee injury suffered playing for Hibernian and is not expected to play again this year.
Vukovic posted a photo of himself in his hospital bed after surgery on his left leg, which could rule the 34-year-old out of action for up to six months.
"Surgery went well and have already started the recovery process. Honestly devastated but was given a small reminder when I turned on the tv in my hospital room. My boy with his papa on the pitch. We will be back out there together soon enough!" he tweeted.
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Vukovic, who won the Belgian title with Genk last season, played in the champions' opening match of the new league campaign on Saturday.
But just days later his agent, Mikkel Beck, announced the injury setback on social media.
"Really bad news for @vuka20 today. He has ruptured his Achilles' tendon and will be operated straight away today and start a long and hard recovery :((( He will get back even stronger than before..." Beck tweeted.
Vukovic kept 14 clean sheets in 37 league matches in 2019-20 as Genk won their first domestic league title in eight years. They backed that up by adding the Belgian Super Cup trophy earlier this month.
Scottish Premiership club Hibs said Boyle "is likely to be out of action for the foreseeable future."
Boyle, 26, had only recently returned from a similar injury sustained last December while preparing for Australia's Asian Cup tilt.
"There's no doubting it's a blow because I put everything into my recovery in the last few months," Boyle told Hibernian's official website.
"The positive is that I know what the rehabilitation entails, and I'm just determined to do things properly and get back to the level I know I can get to."
Three-times capped Vukovic was under-study to No. 1 Mathew Ryan at the World Cup in Russia last year and the 2019 Asian Cup while Boyle has scored twice in three Socceroos appearances.
The Socceroos commence their Qatar 2022 qualifiers against Kuwait on September 10 before clashes with Nepal and Taiwan in October.