"My first reaction was: 'I'm going home, I'm going to be with my family in Argentina. Enough, I don't want to suffer anymore, I want to be well, I want to enjoy life.' But when you are unbalanced, you can say anything because you aren't connected with yourself. I obviously accepted those three weeks of mourning, where I wasn't myself."
"After the first two or three weeks, I didn't want to play football anymore. Because I'd already gone through the foot fracture, and now the knee ... I said, 'That's it, I don't want to know anything else,'"
"You have to reinvent yourself in every sense: physically, mentally and personally. You feel like you aren't a football player,"
Lisandro Martínez suffered a foot fracture at the end of the 2022–23 season, then endured further problems that limited him to 11 Premier League appearances the following campaign. He tore his ACL in February 2025, underwent surgery, and was sidelined for ten months. During the early recovery he experienced unbearable pain, lost balance emotionally, and seriously considered quitting football, spending three weeks in a low, mourning state. Rehabilitation forced a reinvention physically, mentally and personally. Consistent psychological work and support from family and friends sustained him and helped prevent him from abandoning his career.
Read at ESPN.com
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