Sergi Canós, nine months of recovery and a photo to remember

Three days before playing the Europa League final against Sevilla, Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool played their last Premier League game of that season. The third change, ten minutes from the end, marked the debut of Sergi Canós with the first team, who three years earlier had arrived from Barcelona. “Those 10 minutes are not taken away by anyone,” Canós reminds AS. “My parents and my sister were in the stands, I took the shirt signed by everyone. When I left the field, my family's smile was unforgettable.” Despite this great step in a project that already seemed to be the winner, The Spanish decided not to accept the renewal offer: “At Liverpool there were many players. They offered to renew me, but I did not see myself there for five more years. I did not want to be playing with the subsidiary and entering the first team shortly, I think I made the right decision, I had to leave.”

After a brief stint at Norwich, Brentford knocked on his door. And he has not moved from London again. It is already his fourth season there – fifth if we consider the one that was loaned, in adolescent age, scoring his first seven goals as a professional – long enough to have become one of the fans' favorites.

But this October, in one of the first games, luck turned his back: a torn cruciate ligament in his left knee. “It was against Nottingham Forest,” he recalls. “I scored my first professional goal against them when I was 18 years old and against them I destroyed my knee. “ And so he tells it: “We had three games in one week and I came from playing complete the previous two. It was the 88th minute: I am going to a divided ball, I take the ball from the striker, he sticks his elbow in me a little, I fall badly and when supporting the leg the knee goes backwards. There I felt like a machine gun on my knee, as if two bones were coming together, and I fell to the ground. I wanted to continue in the game and I got up. I started walking again, I started running … and I fell suddenly. I couldn't play, but I walked to the locker room, “a detail of scope, especially for what he thought later.

Despite the fact that that night, at home, he was able to support himself “with one leg”, there was something wrong with his knee. “When the days passed and they told me that I was the crusader, that I had to undergo surgery and that I was missing all season … There I thought, and all these people who break the crusader and the stretchers enter the field and mount an ambulance show and lots of doctors? Why did I walk out?Don't fuck with me, what bad luck! If I break the crusader, at least I put on a 10-minute show on the lawn, mine was very little“he jokes about his injury, which has kept him out for nine months.

Brentford is the most championship-shaped team. Five wins in a row -four after the break- without having received a goal they have placed the third bees, in the wake of West Brom and Leeds, with the aim of achieving direct promotion to the Premier League.

“I cried a lot the day they told me I had to have surgery. I had my mother and my uncle Antonio and I cried everything,” Canós explains. But it was a blow that helped him to focus his recovery in the right way: “From there I became mental to be an example. I wanted people to see that work and sacrifice bear good fruit, so I uploaded videos and photos to my social networks, I showed the steps I was taking every week. I didn't know before, but thanks to the crusader I have realized how important recovery is. You can come back better than you were before. “

Precisely, the previous season had been the best of his 23 years. He finished with nine goals and seven assists, even having relevance as a right back, a position he had to adapt to: “I am very proud of my time as Dani Alves. Last year I remember it with a very good taste in my mouth because I overcame many difficulties.” Although the most valuable thing of the injury has been verifying that he was not alone: ​​”It is very easy to be by my side when I score a goal or I am the Man of the Match by Sky Sports. But where it counts most is when you break the crusader, you You have to operate and you are alone. Who is there? Those are the ones that count. And I have those. It is what excites me most about having been injured: I have a family that if I chose it would not work out the same“

Sergi Canós posted a message a few days ago congratulating Liverpool on their league title. The photo he chose was his debut, of course, with Klopp patting him. “I remember Chirivella, I keep talking to him. I played with Ryan Kent and Harry Wilson and the three of us were extreme. There was always one who went to the bench, there was a good level. Trent Alexander-Arnold played in the sub-18 and was already the captain “, recalls his years in the 'network' quarry. The goal now is to play against them next year.