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The story of Gavi’s injury recovery: Spotify playlists, finally swimming and smiling

The story of Gavi’s injury recovery: Spotify playlists, finally swimming and smiling

Gavi took off his warm-up vest and walked to the couch. It was the 83rd minute of Barcelona‘S La Liga game against Seville 10 days ago, with Hansi Flick’s team leading 4-0.

As he prepared to take the field, the crowd at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys rose to give Gavi a standing ovation. After almost a year of being on the sidelines after a anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injurythe 20-year-old midfielder made his return.

Gavi couldn’t hide his smile. His teammates applauded him and the player he replaced, Pedrigave him the captaincy. Central defender Inigo Martinez raised his fists as if celebrating a goal.

It would prove to be one of many boosts for Barcelona in a special week, who would follow up the eventual 5-1 win with a 4-1 home victory against Bayern Munich in the Champions League and a 4-0 demolition of Real Madrid in El Clasico. The contrast with when Gavi initially injured himself could not be greater.

It happened in one European Championship qualifying match against Georgia last November. Three weeks earlier, Xavi’s Barca team had suffered the first major blow in their La Liga title defense, losing the Clásico 2–1 to a Judas Bellingham-inspired Madrid on Montjuic.

Gavi was Barcelona’s best player in that Clásico and one of their standouts at the start of last season. When he stopped in control of a ball in the first half of the match against Georgia in Valladolid after taking a blow three minutes earlier, it was immediately clear that he had seriously hurt his right knee.

The youngster returned to Barcelona where he was examined by club doctors. It was decided that he would need surgery; an operation that lasted between an hour and an hour and a half. A new documentary, produced by club channel Barca One, called Gavi: The Return shows what he had to go through.

Gavi wanted to go home as soon as possible after the operation. He stayed in the hospital for a day and left the next morning, but after two hours had to ask his physiotherapist Pablo Merino to readmit him.


Gavi leaves the field in tears after his injury playing for Spain (Ion Alcoba/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)

“It was excruciating pain,” he says in the Barca One documentary. “Those who have had that injury know what I mean. I didn’t feel like doing anything. For a month I didn’t want to see anyone, I just wanted to be home alone. The first month was very difficult.”

Gavi couldn’t rush his recovery. Physiotherapists consulted by The Athletics pointed out at the time of his injury that a relapse could have serious consequences and that he would have to be patient. He was in danger of being sidelined for at least ten months.

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Barcelona has had previous cases that showed the importance of waiting. Ansu Fati past several recurrences and had to undergo surgery four times to correct a meniscus problem in his left knee. The 21-year-old is now back at Barcelona after spending last season on loan at Brighton Premier League but has yet to return to his pre-injury best level.

Pedri, meanwhile, has suffered several muscle injuries since playing 73 matches for club and country in his breakthrough season of 2020/21, albeit without the same consequences as Fati. Barça were very alert to prevent Gavi from getting into one similar situation like that couple.

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Gavi chose Merino as his physiotherapist and together they worked on his return.

Instead of thinking about when he would play again, they set small goals to help him get there, like when he would be able to go out to dinner with friends, when he would be able to walk without crutches again, when he would be able to walk without stools. can run. Forty days after the operation, he was able to take his first steps without crutches, while walking around the training field of Barca Joan Gamper under the guidance of his physiotherapist. When he felt his surgically repaired leg getting tired, he stopped.

He and Merino continued his recovery, only taking a break at Christmas. He used an exercise bike and spent time in the pool at Hotel Sofia, near Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium (the club does not have a pool or water recovery system in their training facility).


Pedri hands Gavi the armband for his first appearance since his injury (Javier Borrego/Europa Press via Getty Images)

That was a big boost for Gavi, who was able to enter the water with crutches, but once under water could do without crutches at all. “He was able to work on elements like elasticity and certain gestures that were unthinkable from the water,” Merino told Barca One. “He found himself again by just being able to walk.”

Gavi was joined by two more physios after just over two months of recovery: Yon Alvarez and Juan Carlos Perez. He spent time with them at the beach or in the mountains to break up his workout routine. In this second phase of his recovery, they conducted daily sessions with him for the first seven months. Some days they worked in the morning and afternoon.

They didn’t talk about football with Gavi, but helped him relax by discussing other topics. One of them was a ‘recovery playlist’ that they posted on Spotify. The choices surprised some on social media, with songs including Unscribed by Natasha Bedingfield, Baby by Justin Bieber and Ludacris, and Tubthumping by Chumbawamba. It also featured Blur, Michael Jackson, Nirvana, AC/DC, Florence & The Machine and American band The National.

Those choices may not sound unusual to British or American readers, but they are to a footballer in Spain, where reggaeton, a music genre native to Panama, has taken over the dressing rooms.

The physios also preached patience with Gavi, encouraging him not to rush when it came to working with the ball again or thinking about his end goal. Merino took a picture with him every time they took a new step to encourage further progress: the first day he could walk again, the first day he could run, the first day he could touch a ball, etc.

Club sources – who, like everyone else quoted in this article, asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships – say Gavi took every stage very seriously and approached them all with great precision.

He traveled with the Barcelona team in early April when they played the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain. He looked around the Parc des Princes pitch as his teammates trained, but did not return the balls with his feet, instead bending down to pick them up and throw them – a sign of how seriously he was taking his recovery.

All that was the key to Gavi finally returning after eleven months. At the end of July he was able to pass balls again, by mid-September he was back to the group and his return finally came in the match on October 20 against Sevilla, 336 days after that fateful performance in Spain against Georgia.

Since then, Flick has given him 14 minutes, including in that game and brief cameos against Bayern and Madrid. His re-assimilation will be gradual, taking advantage of Barcelona’s well-stocked midfield Marc Casado, Fermin Lopez And Dani Olmo are all in good shape.

In the three short substitute appearances Gavi has had so far, he has once again shown all his character, desire and strength.

Barca’s ‘heart with legs’, as Xavi called him, is seemingly back and here to stay.

(Top photo: Dennis Agyeman/Europa Press via Getty Images)