Last March, Mouctar Diakhaby sustained a horror knee injury after an unfortunate collision with Real Madrid midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni during the 2-2 draw of Valencia with the 36 times La Liga champions in the Mestalla. He was immediately excluded from the rest of the season, and there were fear that he could be forced to withdraw from professional football because of how bad the damage was.
Diakhaby was operated shortly after the incident and recovery began then. It was a long and difficult process, but in the end he came back to Valencia during the 7-1 defeat in Barcelona last month, and in his first La Liga start of the season against Leganes last weekend, he scored.
Diakhaby spoke with the media (via relevant) on Thursday and he opened the recovery process that he went through.
“I knew that the nerve was not touched, the surgeon told me from the start, and this made me calm. Now I am focused on playing again. I was not afraid, because in my head when I did the operation, I knew what I had and I was clear about it, I had no doubt about it.
“The question then was how I would return. How the knee would react. I did not doubt that I would return, the option not to play football again did not exist for me, mine was very serious, but it was not so serious for me, or I concentrated it mentally. That helped me to overcome this injury and not to have that fear. '
Diakhaby also revealed that he was in contact with Tchouameni during his recovery period.
“I have received various messages from Tchouameni. He was a person who wrote me a lot during the injury, because we have a mutual friend who is Ferland Mendy. His words have given me a lot of motivation to get up from this injury. “
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