Chelsea striker Alvaro Morata has opened up about his ‘very difficult year’ in a revealing interview: “I had to inject myself two or three times a day”.
The Spain international described his pain as ‘unbearable’ and lamented how people ‘could not understand what I have gone through’ after continual back problems.
“This has been a very difficult year for me and it has been the same for Chelsea,” Morata explained to Marca.
“I have had an extremely difficult year, torturous. But it started beautifully, I was scoring goals and everyone loved me, but now everything has changed.
“People talk to me on the street but they do not know what I have gone through, the only people who know are my wife and my family.
“I have wanted to keep playing, to keep scoring goals but I have not been able to and what I have experienced medically is very difficult.
“I had to go to Germany several times to receive a treatment in which they punctured me in the back and it hurt me a lot, but I had to return to training in London the next day.
“I could not perform and before playing against West Ham I was told I would be a father – but I could not move. I told the doctor to inject me, and since then everything has gone wrong.
“When you are injured, you are injured. Period. I have tried to keep playing, to keep going, but I cannot.
“I have learned so much from this year, from all the suffering. I have come home from matches and from training, and could not stand the pain.
“I could be eating or driving and all of a sudden I had searing pains in my back, in my buttocks. I would have to stop because of the sciatic nerve.
“It kept coming back, the pain would not go away and I had to inject my self two or three times a day.
“I would love to go to Russia this summer and we could still win a trophy this season with Chelsea, the FA Cup has a lot of value here.”
