The drama of retiring due to injury: "It's the void, you don't know anything, it's like being thrown into a square full of lions"

It's early morning, he crawls across the floor of his home like a baby, panting, sweating and chasing a target, which is not to assault a fortress, but to get to the bathroom. The protagonist of this episode is an adult, Marco Van Basten, who told in his memoirs the adventure for an everyday act because of the after-effects of an ankle injury that forced him to retire from football. It is sport and pain, a combination that sometimes forces an irreversible decision. This was recently communicated by Orlando Ortega, the Spanish hurdler of Cuban origin: "Suffering has a limit". A lot of pain.

Leaving the sport suddenly due to injury can be like entering a cave without a torch. You have to go back to 'walking' through life without a map. The possible question of 'why me?' surrounds the brain. Athletes, psychologists and doctors talk about this situation

At 38 years of age, Rafa Nadal had already built the monument as the best Spanish sportsman in history, but the calendar did not lead him to say goodbye, it was the stabbing of injuries, present in an orography in which there were hardly any joints without damage, which precipitated the step back. In the retirement announcement, the tennis player pointed to the clinical aspect: "It has been difficult years. These last two especially. I have not been able to play without limitations".

Welcome to hell

Alvaro Benito's career was one of goals cut short by a knee injury that began a string of operating theatres and setbacks that mutilated his career. After almost seven years of medical reports and countless operations, the day came when mental and physical endurance went out of the window.

His testimony is heartbreaking: "It's something that eats away at you little by little... I'm starting to be a handicap for my normal life". As the years went by, he remembered that it "was a fucking hell... I was starting to be a nuisance for everyone". So, until the time came to look for another destination: "It was an absolutely liberating moment. I've tried everything and more. It was time to say goodbye".

The return to reality in such a situation is brutal, the mental aspect blows you away; luckily it happened to me when I was 34 years old, if it happens to me when I'm 25, it destroys me

Van Basten already had a place in eternity when misfortune visited him. The Dutchman, the closest thing to a swan in the area, recalled how "for three years I tried everything to get fit again... But my career was over. In fact, in the end I was satisfied if I could walk to the bakery without feeling too much pain... For seven years I hid away".

Nerea Pena, a handball player, was forced to retire in 2024 at the age of 34. Chronic tendinopathy in her left knee prematurely ended the career of the Spanish international, a world and European medallist. "It was a long process, almost two and a half years. The option to quit was always there, it was like going against the grain. I didn't even make the decision myself. It happened that the bad knee messed up the other one, the right one, and my body said enough is enough. It blew up," she explains.

On that journey towards farewell, she felt above all "frustration. You see that the deadlines are not met," she said. "Something always happens, you know that you have had other times good recoveries, but with this injury no, it was super frustrating," says Pena. The player points out "the mental aspect, it wears you out, it blows you away, you go round in circles."

In this way, Nerea Pina turned to a psychologist because "when retirement comes, the beginning of reality is brutal and you move to life on the street. You have 24 hours to think, it's as if you're thrown into a square full of lions. There's a void, you don't know anything and because you haven't chosen the moment, it's hard." The athlete admits that "you cry, you cry a lot, but above all it's the thoughts that go round and round in your head."

Pain

In this state, Nerea says, "you're not yourself, you're so negative that it affected me in everything. I was angry all day long, it was a living hell and you take it out on your partner, your family. And that's because I completed 95% of a career, it's like an early retirement that you don't want. I turned it around, although it's a bummer to finish like that. Luckily it happened to me when I was 34 years old, at 25 it would have destroyed me, as if I had broken my dream."

And there is a more tangible part, "the pain, a horrible pain," says the player, "something that does not immobilize you, but I could not jump, brake, run." With good humor she says that "I had promised myself not to pay to play sports, but I'm in a group because if I do nothing everything hurts. But I can't jump or run, no impact sports".

When the injury affects quality of life, family, etc., it becomes more difficult. There are athletes who say, 'Doctor, I can't take it anymore

If she is sent a handball, she only takes it "to bounce it and throw it. I watch handball just enough, only what is going to give me pleasure. " For Nerea Pena "you have to turn the page".

Alexia Putellas, a reference in Spanish sport, recently spoke to Harper's Bazaar. The footballer, who has overcome a serious knee injury, reflects and points out that "elite professional sport is not healthy, neither mentally nor physically".

Gerard Deulofeu is fighting to keep the monster from devouring him. A knee injury, three years of battle that he describes in an interview with 'The Guardian' as "the toughest recovery in history. If I manage to come back it will be more than a thousand days. But I am a person who takes care of myself and I think I can achieve it". Hope does not dispel the ghost and he admits to thinking "sometimes that I have already had a good career and that the best thing would be to finish".

Exclusive images of 'Universo Valdano: Ronaldo Nazario' from Movistar Plus+. Dr. Juan Jose Garcia Cota, Celta's chief medical officer, certifies that "if there is a retirement and he is your patient, you are left with a little frustration, even if it is a clear case". An injury squeezes the head and the body.

Cota explains that "the physical and mental wear and tear go hand in hand. It depends on the injury, the sport, the age. It's not the same at 40 as it is at 25. With more years there are ailments where the prognosis is worse. At 25 with a knee injury you don't think about whether you're going to give up the sport."

With decades of experience, Cota recalls the case of "an athlete with a knee injury who retired. Years went by and he asked me to reoperate on him because he couldn't kick a plastic ball to play with his son. When the injury influences the quality of life, in the family, etc., it becomes harder."

Anguish and uncertainty

The doctor adds how "there are also some who throw in the towel prematurely. They say, 'doctor, I can't take it anymore'. Sometimes you get some to recover and improve. It depends on the strength of each one".

In these processes of serious injuries "you always have to act as a doctor and psychologist," says Cota, because you also "have to show empathy with what is happening to him, put yourself in his place, take ownership of his pain. Tolerance to pain does not admit statistics, it depends on each one. There are people who already reach the limit and can't take it anymore."

Injury and retirement. The head sends signals and that's what specialists are for. Ares Zamora, a psychologist, argues that "an injury withdrawal is a duel, a loss. The athlete has a built identity and that is terminated by something that does not depend on you. At the beginning there is shock, anger, sadness, these are cyclical emotions. You have to know how to accompany these athletes and then rebuild an identity."

Injury withdrawal is a shock, the athlete has an identity built up and it ends, it is normal to ask many questions

The specialist certifies that if the withdrawal "comes suddenly, it is normal for the affected person to ask many questions and should not be pressured. You have to find things that recharge you, but it's going to be very hard. Sport is the passion of all of them. Age also influences. If you are young, the frustration is even greater, it is typical, that of asking why me? but you should not get caught up in that."

For Ares Zamora, "the process of uncertainty generates anguish. Until that moment you are in a bubble, you live for that, you have routines and getting out of there is to enter a new world, of many changes, it is a radical change". The psychologist warns that "you have to know how to get out of those injuries. These processes affect you and the people around you. You have to know how to say enough is enough".

The Last Stretcher

About the pain and its aftermath, she believes that "you can try to work with it, but it affects your mood and you can even dream that it stops hurting. There are times when you don't recognize yourself, you have no spirit."

In March 2023, Pepe Pozas was a point guard for Betis in the ACB. A ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee precipitated everything. In October, he announced his retirement at the age of 31. It was a short process: "Two years earlier I had already suffered a knee injury, not as serious as this one. At the beginning you feel a little down, but I was preparing to come back. On the court, during recovery, I felt discomfort, I received an offer from the ACB to do other things, I put everything on the scale and decided to leave it."

With the job change "something quick and unexpected came up when I was one or two months in, impostor syndrome. You think about how to contribute something, apart from what you know from playing basketball". The fact is that Pozas' last game was the one in which he left on a stretcher, a situation that "one can never imagine, but I had to live that and with time I have seen how it was the play".

He remembers that moment as "visually unpleasant. The kneecap goes up like a span, you see that something is not in place. I knew what was happening. I told them, 'I've seen the kneecap up here, I'm completely broken'".

When you move on to 'real' life, you realise what it entails and you ask yourself: what am I going to do? Am I going to be worth it? What financial situation will my family be in?

Regarding psychological help, Pepe Pozas reveals that before the injury "I did have a psychologist. However, in the last stretch, with the injury, I did not resort to that and it should be mandatory. You go from a very tight life and when you go to real life, so to speak, you realize what it entails. I should have resorted to that help, it helps you to verbalize and if you end your career on a stretcher... I should have paid my wife or some friend for their help, because there are many changes, uncertainty arises, what am I going to do? Am I going to be worth it? What situation is my family in financially?"

Pozas is now in the process of "detoxification. I do little exercise, no partying. The pain I do remember, from when I was on the hospital stretcher or later lying at home, that deep pain".

The doctor-athlete relationship

Dr. Alfonso del Corral, former head of Real Madrid's medical services, among other roles, asserts that the injured athlete "fights, relapses, breaks down and begins to doubt. The problem is that he notices that he is losing his edge, he loses his spark. It's like what happened to Ronaldo 'O Fenomeno', who in the end was no longer himself, or Fernando Redondo, who was left out of the elite by an operation."

That doctor-athlete relationship with serious injury leads to different relationships. Del Corral remembers that "in my time I tried to get involved, that generates affection and friendships. A roadmap is drawn up and we try to give affection. The athlete is not a rock and gives you blind confidence, there is complicity."

Del Corral points out how "when retirement is decided in these cases it is almost a liberation. The world neither begins nor ends in sport. There are thousands of paths and they are worth it. Life gives you a hard time and you have to get over it. What sportsmen don't have injuries?".

When retirement is decided in these cases, there is almost a sense of liberation, there are thousands of paths in life and they are worth it

The doctor recalls some relevant cases: "What I fought for Alvaro Benito was something beastly. With Woodgate we were all focused on him, we suffered for him. Ronaldo was a buffalo at the beginning of his career, but with both patellar tendons broken in the knee it was impossible to be the same. He was a prodigy."

He believes that "elite sport is not healthy if it is taken to the extreme and if when you leave it is cut radically that can not be. You can't put on 30 kilos at once. And also, the body wears out."

Van Basten made it to the bathroom. After urinating as best he could, he turned off the light and crawled back to bed. A victory