Santi Cazorla: comeback king
From almost losing a foot to flying in Spain, he tells FFT all
Santi Cazorla will never forget the moment he walked back into the Spain dressing room, following the hardest four years of his life. Some of the faces had changed, but some remained the same as they had always been. There to greet him again were his friends; his team-mates from happy days gone by: Sergio Ramos, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, Jesus Navas and more. Players he’d won European Championships with. Players he thought he’d never play with again. “I arrived and they said, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?!’” chuckles Cazorla as he recalls that day in June. “I just said, ‘I don’t know, my friends! It’s surprising, isn’t it?’”
He’s still surprised as we chat today, inside the mini-stadium at Villarreal’s training base. It’s 20 degrees in November, but it’s difficult to tell whether the warm glow is coming from the sky or the man opposite us. Few people on Earth can be happier than Cazorla right now, as he tells Fourfourtwo about the remarkable second instalment of a career that looked set for a premature end.
It’s a second instalment that even he didn’t expect, but the seemingly impossible has now become a reality. At the age of 35 – two years after nearly losing his right leg, two years after almost conceding defeat and announcing his retirement – Cazorla is a regular in the Spain team once more.
THE INJURY
For a long time, Cazorla feared a 2015 match against England had been his 76th and final appearance for his country. He had scored the second goal of a dominant Spain victory that night, opening up his body and expertly using his left foot to pass the ball into the bottom corner of the net, in off the left-hand upright.
By then, Cazorla had already been struggling with injury problems for two years – problems that began early in his second season as an Arsenal player. He scored 12 goals in his first Premier League campaign, swiftly winning the hearts of Gunners supporters with his majesty in possession. Then came the international break, and a friendly against Chile in Geneva.
“It was simply a little kick on my ankle, but after that I started to have a lot of problems with my right foot,” says Cazorla. He was back on the field for Arsenal within four weeks, but something wasn’t right. “At first I thought, ‘It was a small kick, it’s not dangerous, maybe I’ll have pain for a month or two and then it will be gone’. But no. Every game, every day, there was a bit more pain in my ankle.”
For a long time, you wouldn’t have known it. At the end of that 2013-14 season, Cazorla scored the goal that swung the FA Cup final back in the north Londoners’ favour, firing in a free-kick that launched a recovery from 2-0 down against Hull City. It gave Arsene Wenger his first trophy in nine years.
Cazorla continued to feature for La Roja, too, until that England game in 2015. An extended injury layoff ended his hopes of going to Euro 2016, but he eventually returned and played regularly at club level at the start of the next campaign. There came a point, though, when he arrived at an inevitable realisation. For his own health, he had to stop playing.
He didn’t know at the time, but a Champions League group game against Bulgarian team Ludogorets Razgrad in October 2016 would be Cazorla’s last match for Arsenal. The Gunners romped to a 6-0 win that night: Cazorla’s final touch before being substituted, just before the hour mark, was an exquisite chipped pass that sent Mesut Ozil away for their fourth goal.
“That was my last moment at the Emirates Stadium and it’s true that it was an assist for Mesut, but it was a very difficult moment for me,” he tells FFT. “Every game was a lot more pain, and against Ludogorets I didn’t enjoy it on the field. Afterwards, I was crying because
I felt so much pain. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t move. I spoke to the doctors and said, ‘I have to stop’. We had to see what was happening with my ankle.”
He underwent surgery, but still something wasn’t right – surgery had led to an infection. It was then discovered that he had contracted gangrene, a condition commonly associated with the trenches during the First World War. The infection had eaten away at his Achilles tendon, to Cazorla’s horror.
“When the doctors told me I didn’t have 10 centimetres of my tendon, I said, ‘What?! It’s true?’” he remembers. “Unfortunately, I think it was a little bit too late when they found out. My skin was completely dead so they said, ‘We have to take a skin graft from an arm and put it in the ankle’. That was the worst moment of my life, not just football.”
The skin graft came from his left arm, even though that section of his body was covered with a tattoo bearing the name of daughter India. “They said they had to take it from that arm as it had the best artery on the body, so I said, ‘OK’,” he recalls.
Cazorla didn’t anticipate quite how big the skin graft would be, however. It left him with a gaping hole in the tattoo, which now reads ‘Ind’, with the ‘ia’ part now down on his heel.
“WHEN I WOKE UP AND SAW MY ARM AFTER THE SURGERY, I SAID, ‘WHAT IS THIS, MY FRIEND...?’”
“I thought they would only take a little bit,” he says. “When I woke up and saw my arm after the surgery, I said, ‘What is this, my friend...?’”
THE RECOVERY
Things could have been even worse, though. Had the infection remained undetected, even part-amputation of the leg could have proved a possibility. “Yes, they told me about that but I didn’t believe it,” says Cazorla now, still quite uncomfortable contemplating how close he came to that prospect.
“It’s difficult to think about, that ‘be careful because maybe you have to lose it’. They told me it was a small possibility, but I always try to be positive and push all the negatives out.”
At 32, retirement from football was a strong probability. “They said I may have to retire, but every day I went to the hospital and wanted to work hard on my recovery,” he says. “I said, ‘No, doctor. Look, I’m positive, I’ll come back’.”
The Spaniard’s positivity was severely tested as the weeks went on, and progress was slow. For a lot of his recovery, he had to spend time away from his family. His mind moved closer to giving up on the game.
“I was alone in a hotel – that was the worst part of the injury,” he says. “Every week I went to Vitoria, and after that I went to Salamanca with my personal physio. I’d go to the hospital for treatment and still couldn’t do anything – I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t run, I couldn’t touch the ball. It was boring. Every day was difficult.
“Sometimes I thought about retiring. In the worst moments, I would call my wife and say, ‘I think I have to stop’. But she’d say, ‘No, you have to wake up tomorrow, go to the hospital and stay positive’. My family, my friends, my physio and my doctor all said, ‘We still believe in you’. I’d say, ‘OK, OK, I’ll work and we’ll see in the future if I can play again’.”
Eventually, Cazorla started to make progress, but it was too late to save his Arsenal career. He’d already been in the last year of his deal when he faced Ludogorets in 2016, although Wenger gave him a one-year extension as he prepared to fly to Sweden for the first of what would turn out to be 10 ankle operations.
“I was out of contract that season and it was difficult to know what would happen,” he says
of that worrying time. “Just before my surgery in Sweden, Arsene called and said, ‘Sign a new contract – you have one year more. Have the surgery, keep calm and we’ll see if you can get back as soon as possible’. That was brilliant for me, so thank you to him for doing that.”
By the end of the 2017-18 season, however, that 12-month extension was almost up and Cazorla still hadn’t returned to action. He was getting closer, but he still wasn’t quite ready. On April 19, 2018, Wenger publicly expressed a hope to keep the Spaniard at the Emirates. On April 20, 2018, a decision had been made – not regarding Cazorla, but Wenger himself. The manager would be leaving the club at the end of the season.
In the end, Arsenal announced that Cazorla would not be offered a new deal. Might things have been different had Wenger remained in the dugout that summer? “I don’t really know, maybe,” he says. “If Arsene had stayed there, maybe I would have stayed at Arsenal for one more year. But there were a lot of changes in that year – a new coach, new people working at the club – so I recognised the possibility that I might have to leave. I understood that my injury was very bad.”
Even if he appreciated the reasons, it didn’t make leaving any easier following five years in north London. “That’s true, it was a little bit frustrating for me not to play for Arsenal again because I love that club,” he admits. “When I was doing my recovery, a lot of team-mates would message me – the Spanish players like Nacho Monreal and Hector Bellerin, but also guys like Per Mertesacker and Danny Welbeck; lovely people. They sent me a text every week asking, ‘How are you, how is the injury?’ They would ask, ‘When will you be coming back to London? We all miss you on the pitch’. I loved playing at the Emirates, so it was tough to say goodbye without playing there.”
Unable to play, Cazorla did the closest thing possible. As he awaited news on his future, in the days after Wenger’s imminent departure had been revealed, he called the Frenchman.
“Just before the Europa League semi-final against Atletico Madrid, I phoned Arsene and said, ‘Boss, can I train at the Emirates before the game?’ The first thing he said was, ‘You can play!’ I said, ‘No, I can’t play, only training my friend! I need to train at the Emirates, just for one day. I need to feel the stadium again’.
“It was three hours before kick-off so there weren’t a lot of people inside the stadium, but that day was very special for me – just to run and touch the ball a little bit at the Emirates. I needed to do it, for me personally.”
THE COMEBACK
In the end, it was the playmaker’s first senior club Villarreal who did what Wenger may have done prior to the 2018-19 campaign – invited him to test his fitness during pre-season, with a view to a contract.
Within weeks, his former team had offered him a one-year deal. How best to announce it? By inviting a magician to Villarreal’s El Madrigal home and filling an empty glass capsule with
smoke in the middle of the pitch, only for it to clear and Cazorla to magically appear inside the capsule. “It was a bit different!” he laughs. “I was in there for a long time, waiting for 45 minutes – I had my phone and I was asking people, ‘What’s happening?’ I was nervous that maybe I’d been left alone in the stadium!”
After the spectacular unveiling by the Yellow Submarine came his highly-anticipated return to competitive action. A full 668 days after his last outing for Arsenal, Cazorla was raring to go for Villarreal in their opening La Liga fixture of 2018-19, at home to Real Sociedad.
“I felt a lot of sensations that day,” he says. “It’s different when you play friendly games – if you have to go in strongly to tackle another player, in a friendly you can say, ‘OK, stop’. In the first league match, you say, ‘OK, I have to go in, we’ll see what happens’. After two years out injured, I was a bit scared. But after about five minutes, I started to really enjoy it. I had worked so hard for that. It was a special day.”
Once he was back on the field, the Spaniard quickly started to impress onlookers. Amid all the anguish and all the doubts, he had never forgotten how to play football.
“I knew that if I didn’t play very well, people would start saying, ‘Look, this guy is done – he can’t play at the top level any more’,” he says. “But I felt pretty good from the start. There’s a little bit of pain for every game now, but it’s a different pain – nothing serious.”
Cazorla clicked into another gear at the start of 2019: facing Real Madrid in their first game since winning the Club World Cup, he scored twice in a 2-2 draw at El Madrigal.
“When I was injured, I’d watch Real Madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal and Chelsea matches and think, ‘I want to play against the biggest teams again one day’,” he remembers. “Then I came back, played against Real Madrid and scored two goals – it was a great pleasure.”
His comeback season wasn’t without some challenges, however: despite his own positive form, Villarreal were battling relegation from La Liga. In April, he cried outside the dressing room after seeing a crucial penalty saved at Real Betis, leaving the club in the relegation zone. “That was a very difficult moment,” he admits. “In one week, we played three games. At Celta Vigo, we were 2-0 up at half-time and lost 3-2. We were winning 4-2 in injury time at home to Barcelona, but then conceded two goals from Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. Then we lost 2-1 at Betis and I missed a penalty in the last minute.”
But Cazorla has recovered from bigger setbacks, and he recovered again. He helped Villarreal to three consecutive victories and they were safe from relegation.
Days later, he was recalled to the Spain squad after four years away. “That was a big surprise for me,” he says. “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever play for the national team again. I was 34 and there are a lot of good young players in my position now – a new generation.”
The banter that greeted Cazorla’s return to Spain’s dressing room was an indication of the happiness former team-mates felt about his remarkable comeback. He started against the Faroe Islands in June; when Sergio Ramos was withdrawn at half-time, the Madrid defender handed Cazorla the captain’s armband for the second half. “To play for the national team and be captain for the second half, it was a special moment,” smiles Cazorla.
His excellent form continued into the new campaign: he recently overtook Juan Roman Riquelme as the highest-scoring midfielder in Villarreal’s history, and started both of Spain’s final Euro 2020 qualifiers in November. Against Malta in Cadiz, he returned to the scoresheet, in spookily identical fashion to his goal against England back in 2015. The goal he thought had been his last. The second goal of a dominant win. Opening up his body, expertly using his left foot to pass the ball into the corner. In off a post. Welcome back, Santi Cazorla. Throughout his comeback, he had received messages from former Arsenal team-mates, and Wenger too. “A lot of people have been in touch saying, ‘I’m so happy you’re back’,” reveals Cazorla. “Arsene has been one of them and, once again, I have to say thank you. He was an important coach in my career. When I was at Arsenal, he believed in me from the start.”
Cazorla has felt the love of Arsenal fans, too. “My social media has been crazy – I’ve had so many messages, I don’t know why,” he says. If he’s surprised by the sheer scale of affection from Gunners supporters, he shouldn’t be: it’s a reflection of his performances for the club.
“Well I tried, but every player tries,” he says modestly. “My time at Arsenal was amazing from the start. The most special memory was the FA Cup final against Hull and my goal – it was a really important goal because we were losing 2-0 and we won 3-2. After the club had gone nine seasons without a trophy, it was the most beautiful moment for me at Arsenal. All the fans supported me, they love me and I feel the same. I love them.”
Had it not been for the injuries, Cazorla may well have been the club’s captain now. Despite being on his way out of the Gunners by then, he talked openly with Unai Emery 18 months ago, passing on information he hoped would help the incoming coach. “He called me and asked about the club and the players,” says Cazorla. “I tried to help him, and if I can help Arsenal, I’ll always try.”
He’s open to a return when his playing days are over, too. “We’ll see if I have the chance in the future,” he says. “It’s always special to be back in London.”
Cazorla came close to an Emirates return last season: the winners of Villarreal’s Europa League quarter-final with neighbours Valencia were drawn to face Arsenal in the semis. “If we’d beaten Valencia, we would have played Arsenal – so very close,” he says. “I’d love to play in front of the fans one more time. I talk with people there and say, ‘My friend, give me an opportunity to play a friendly game there!’ I need to play one game there before I retire.”
After his lengthy absence from the game, he hopes that retirement is now some way off. “I want to play for as long as possible,” insists the Spaniard. “We’ll see if I can play for three or four more years. I enjoy all the small details of football now. Before an injury, you think it’s normal to enjoy playing in the stadium and being on the bus before the game. Now I enjoy those moments more, because two years ago things were completely different for me.”
Completely different for his family, too. He’s looking at ways to restore the tattoo dedicated to his daughter India, decimated by the skin graft. “I’ve asked and I don’t think they can do it on my arm again – it’s dangerous because of the chance of infection,” he says. “Maybe I’ll put it on another part of my body instead.”
But just his return to the pitch has already brought happiness back to the family. “They come to see every game, and I enjoy that so much,” he says. “My little boy used to ask me, ‘Daddy, what’s happening with you, why don’t you play any more?’ I’d say, ‘Hey, daddy’s in a little bit of a bad moment now, but I’ll come back. For you, I will come back’.”
For a long time, that seemed improbable – maybe impossible. But in the end, he fulfilled that promise. Santi Cazorla came back.
“I NEVER THOUGHT I’D PLAY FOR SPAIN AGAIN. TO BE CAPTAIN FOR THE SECOND HALF WAS SPECIAL”