WELCOME TO MY MUSEUM
Bojan invites Sportsmail into his home as he battles back from a horror knee injury
IT is 7pm at Bojan Krkic’s home in the Barcelona province of El Papiol and following a long day of rehabilitation and one final session in the swimming pool, he is making his way gingerly up the stairs.
In the living room, his father Bojan Snr and physio Jose Vilarino are deep in discussion.
‘I want you to have a little word with him,’ Bojan Snr tells Vilarino, wearing a worried expression. ‘All his life, from when he was seven at Barcelona, he has done everything to the maximum. He is doing so well, but he can’t do too much.’
Vilarino, who counts Cesar Azpilicueta and Diego Costa among his clients and has worked with Bojan for several years, nods. ‘I will speak to him. Don’t worry.’
More than two months have passed since a fateful evening at Rochdale’s Spotland Stadium where Stoke City’s Bojan suffered the cruciate knee ligament injury that brought a sudden end to his first season in English football.
He is ahead of schedule and aims to be in peak condition to begin pre-season training in July. He was off crutches inside a month and is now back driving.
Out of his Speedos and back into more casual wear, Bojan arrives in the room and claps his hands together. ‘Right, that’s me done for today,’ he says. He sits down and picks up a copy of a book titled How to Be Like Mike.
‘I can’t put this down. I’m reading it in Spanish but I am still having English lessons,’ he says. ‘ It is a motivational book about basketball legend Michael Jordan. His determination was inspiring. It helps me focus and drives me on.’
Bojan is an avid reader. On his bedside table, beside the DVDs he uses to analyse his performances, he has a copy of his former teammate Andres Iniesta’s autobiography. ‘Simply a genius’ is his verdict on the Barcelona playmaker.
Bojan, still only 24, is not your normal footballer. This is the man who finished his Spanish baccalaureate exams, equivalent to A Levels, while he was playing Champions League football with Barcelona — he received his results on the day of the 2009 final against Manchester United — and now he is working his way through Catalan philosophy.
Eduardo Punset’s The Journey into the Power of the Mind lies open on his bed, as does a translated version of Steve Jobs’ autobiography and Ken Follett’s historical novel The Pillars of the Earth.
‘The recovery is psychological as well as physical,’ he explains. ‘I write a diary every day. Everything has to be right. I have to eat right. I only drink water and the physios have written a strict diet. I need to fill my time in the right way. I am watching all the Premier League games, too. David de Gea has been fantastic, the best season I’ve seen a goalkeeper have. I love watching Santi Cazorla. Harry Kane — I didn’t know too much about him before but he is brilliant this season.’
Bojan has asked to do this interview to offer Stoke supporters a glimpse of the tireless work he is putting in to ensure he returns ‘not only the same but even stronger’.
Over two fascinating days, Sportsmail accompanied him to his two rehab centres in Barcelona and he made us welcome in his luxury home. He devotes seven hours a day to a regime organised by Stoke, Vilarino and the two leading centres in Barcelona — the Novaelite Sports Performance Innovation and Amaina Physiotherapy.
The house is filled with keepsakes from a career that exploded into life when Bojan was 16. In an era where the Nou Camp was graced by talents including Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi, David Villa and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Bojan struck 41 senior goals before he was 21. ‘ Come in here a moment,’ he sa says. ‘Welcome to m my museum.’ It’s a room that houses a large glass cabinet w which has two Champions League medals and three La Liga medals.
Bojan has also kept the white Nike boots with which he scored his first Barca goals and has the match ball from the night he scored the winner in a Champions League quarter-final against Schalke.
More than 50 jerseys are lined up. Iniesta’s shirt, swapped after a game between AC Milan and Barcelona, is the centrepiece. Cristiano Ronaldo’s Manchester United shirt from the 2008 Champions League semi-final at Old Trafford is near the front.
‘Special memories and special moments,’ he says. ‘ I will probably think more about it all later in my life but I am glad I have kept everything.’
It feels a million miles away from Rochdale but it is to that arctic January evening that we return. It was the evening he scored a beautiful volley. But just 30 minutes later he was on the ground, clutching his left knee and pleading for help.
‘Out of nothing,’ he says, shaking his head, ‘ There was no challenge. I was chasing a ball into the penalty area and tried to bring it under control. A normal movement. It just went. The left knee buckled beneath me.
‘I knew it was serious straight away. It was an immense pain. I remember I had my hands on my head. In the dressing room, I went into a state of shock.’
The evening ended in hospital. The anterior cruciate ligament had been ruptured, but the meniscus and the two lateral ligaments had not been damaged. ‘He was lucky,’ says his father. ‘As far as cruciates go, this is the best possible.’
Still, it felt like wicked timing. After mixed spells with Roma, Milan and Ajax, Bojan’s career appeared to be back on an upward curve with Stoke.
He scored in victories over Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton. When Chelsea visited at Christmas, Jose Mourinho employed both Nemanja Matic and John Mikel Obi to stop him.
A week later, Everton fans tried to blind him with a laser as he stepped up to take a penalty.
‘I noticed that as I ran up. I still scored,’ he grins.
Many viewed him as the bargain signing of the season. He was under serious consideration from Vicente del Bosque for a first Spain call-up in four years.
‘The difference at Stoke is the number of minutes I was playing. You believe in yourself more, you try different things.
‘Mark Hughes really believes in me, he makes me feel as though I’m a great footballer.
‘He has put me into the position I believe is my best — ‘ media punta’ (behind the striker). In this role, I have freedom. I love playing, creating, constructing, scoring goals. It was as happy as I have been in football.’
It is why the injury seems cruel. ‘ But this is football. Things happen. There were no tears. I wasn’t lying there moaning and asking, “Why me?” My focus was on recovery, I was asking the doctors what I needed to do to return as soon as possible.’
His days now begin at 10.30am at the Novaelite centre. The first hour is spent in the gym, improving his stability, before using cutting-edge equipment — such as an anti-gravity treadmill — that has been developed by NASA.
He winces as the exercises become more intense. ‘Look at how much more you are doing now than last week,’ says his trainer Daniel Labarca.
‘And you have to smile if they are taking pictures!’
In the evenings, he goes to
I knew it was serious straight away. It was an immense pain When I return I don’t want to be the same as before, I want to be better
the Amaina centre for two hours with the slightly eccentric Jordi Pares. Bojan wanders in with a new haircut and he wants Pares’s approval.
‘Here, let me get you a mirror so you can admire yourself.’ he jokes. ‘What is the word in English? Vain?’ They both burst out in laughter.
In the darker moments, it must be difficult to imagine just what it will be like to kick a football again — the moments when his physios push down on the swollen area with such force that Bojan’s body convulses with pain, when the agony is such that he screws up his eyes and clenches his hands together over his face.
‘I admit I have thought that,’ Bojan says.
‘I miss football so much. It’s all I’ve ever known. There is not a substitute for that buzz.
‘As a footballer, you know it is a career where you risk injury. That’s why you have to play with a smile and try to enjoy every moment. You have to think, “I will be back”. I have thought a lot about this.
‘The best is to think little by little, and eventually you arrive at the end goal.
‘That is why I read all these books. I am now off the crutches. I can walk now, then I want to walk quicker, then jog, then to run ... by the end, you’re scoring goals and the fans are screaming your name.
‘When I return I don’t want to be the same as before, I want to be stronger, better than before.
‘Trust me, I will be back.’