Santi Cazorla : To Hell and Back

After four years and a life threatening injury, Santi Cazorla has been called back up to the Spain squad for the Euro 2020 qualifiers. He last played for La Roja on 9 October 2015, where he scored twice in a 4–0 win over Luxembourg at the Estadio Las Gaunas.In this time period he overcame a 636 day injury hell, where at one one point doctors told him that he may never walk again.  

On 19 October, 2016, during Arsenal’s Champions League fixture against Ludogorets Razgrad, Santi sustained a Achilles tendon injury from a challenge while providing an assist for a Mesut Özil goal in the 6–0 victory. At the time, the seriousness of the injury was unknown, but after standard rehabilitation didn’t prove effective things got grim for the “little magician”.

In December it was confirmed that the tendon injury in the plantar area of his right foot required surgery. However, the wound kept re-opening to the extent that eventually eight operations were needed. The problem was that it did not heal and the wounds would reopen, become infected, that had damaged part of the calcaneus bone and it had eaten the Achilles tendon 8 centimeters. The reason it became so serious was a prior ankle injury he sustained while playing for Spain vs Chile in Geneva on 10 September, 2013. Since his ankle injury in 2013, Santi has played with immense pain and discomfort, but it didn’t show in his performances.

The wound and scar tissue did not heal and became infected, the aggressive nature of three bacteria required antibiotic treatments and it was at this stage that fears arose of a blood infection that could mean amputation.