MADRID, 3 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Villarreal footballer Yeremy Pino said that, after winning the Nations League and the European Championship, “coming” to the national team “is very difficult”, so he will try to “make the most of the opportunity” that the coach, Luis de la Fuente, has given him again “to the maximum”, also after a “long and hard” process due to his serious knee injury.
“Coming is very difficult, there are some very good players. I am very happy that Luis (de la Fuente) and the coaching staff have given me this opportunity and I will try to make the most of it,” said the attacker in statements shared by the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) on the occasion of the player’s return to a national squad.
Yeremy Pino’s life changed completely on November 15, 2023, when during a training session with Villarreal he suffered a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee that forced him to say goodbye to the remainder of the season.
“It’s been a long, hard game. Above all, there have been moments of doubt, uncertainty, wondering if I’ll be back the same. In the end, here we are, with a new opportunity, a new hope and fighting for my dreams,” explains the Canary Islander, who has already played in the first four EA Sports LaLiga matches and has returned to the national team.
And the road has been hard and full of stones, especially when a bacteria was found during blood tests when he had been recovering for just over two months. “You have a process, they tell you how everything is going to be. You get better and you are happy. But the bacteria came and it was like a punch. It was like starting over, having surgery again, starting with crutches. It’s starting from scratch,” he recalled.
“You value everything much more. The training sessions, the trips, the training camps, the small gestures of being able to be there and live your life… The first three months you can’t do things alone, you depend on people, but it’s been a great learning experience,” he said about his recovery, highlighting the figure of Mikel Oyarzabal, who told him to “learn from the process because it’s very nice.” “I didn’t understand it, I thought it was crap, but it is nice and you have to learn from it,” he confessed.
He won the Nations League in June 2023, but, inevitably, he missed the Euro Cup due to his injury, something that “hurt” him. “But seeing what they have achieved, the block that Luis has created, for me it is like a family. I was on a call in the street, I spoke with Luis many times, with Baena, David (Raya), Álvaro (Morata). They make me feel part of the group many times and I thank them for what they have done for me. They have given me a lot of encouragement,” he said.