That picture sums it up. It is November, João Félix has already received that blow to the ankle in the group stage of the Champions League (October 21) that it hurts, it does not go away. Atlético plays against Valencia and the rojiblanco throws himself to the ground holding his right foot with a rueful gesture and the cry that it hurts in his open mouth, his eyes closed, he still does not go overboard. I would not do it all season with the champion Atleti. A season that was João's second, in which his confirmation was expected, seeing him become a Kun Agúero, tie the stripes and throw the team on the back to dazzle the whole of Europe, the whole world.
But not. João continued to be only flashes, only sometimes, a despair for Simeone, who has not yet managed to get all his talent out of him. And that it has. Infinite. But that ankle was slowing down, that ankle hurt. With Portugal, in the Eurocup, he did not let him shine either: He played only 37 'on the last day, when his team was already down, and he didn't do it badly. He asked for it, he sought it, he tried. And that the ankle pain was still there. The next day the news was known.
João Félix will undergo surgery to perform an exostosis of the right ankle. An exostosis that consists of filing that anomalous bone growth that is not allowing it to perform as it should. In principle scheduled for Thursday, it will finally be today, in Porto. Then, with 21 days of vacation ahead with Atlético, will work with a physio supervised by the rojiblanco club and, once incorporated into the discipline of his club, the functional rehabilitation work will begin. The right ankle of the rojiblanco '7' will be put in the hands of one of the greatest specialists in the field, the 70-year-old Dutch doctor Cornelis Nicolaas Van Dijk, through whose hands Van Nistelrooy passed, who had his synovitis solved, Van Persie, Inzaghi or Cristiano Ronaldo.