[SPORT] Aduriz precipitates his withdrawal: "My body has said enough"

[YaKuZa--BoSs]

A hip injury forces the farewell of Athletic's most important footballer so far this century. Valverde: "He has been a great leader"

 

 

 

 

A simple tweet in the middle of a sunny Phase 1 afternoon was enough for the idol to become a legend forever. With no room for celebration, Aritz Aduriz forever hung his shirt with the number 20, without waiting for this strange season to end to do so, as he had planned. "My body has said enough," acknowledged Athletic's most important footballer so far this century. He will no longer train today, he will no longer play. His hip problems have precipitated a goodbye that leaves San Mamés an orphan of the greatest certainty he has had in recent years.

Never again will an Aduriz goal save a bad match or buck a win. Athletic starts a new era: that of learning to live without it. 172 goals have adorned his 407 games with the only shirt he wanted to wear, as much as his professionalism and character also left a deep mark on Burgos, Valladolid, Mallorca and Valencia, his other stations. All in passing, because on the two occasions when he had to pack his bags he did so thinking of returning. The last season should be the Copa del Rey final against Real Sociedad, the desire to leave lifting a title. The pandemic broke its illusion, as it has done with many others.

Already last summer he had many doubts about whether to continue being active or not. The head -and the physicist- told him no, but the heart did, and in that dilemma he never had doubts. The reality, however, has been stubbornly imposed. "Just yesterday [by Tuesday], the doctors recommended that I go through the operating room, better tomorrow than the day after, to put on a prosthesis to replace my hip and try to face, at least, as normally as possible, daily life," explained the forward in his farewell message.

In his last season, now 39, he has only been able to play 252 minutes spread over 17 games, always from the bench. And only one goal ... but what a goal! Against Barça, in San Mamés, in the first minute of the first day of the League, in the middle of the Great Week in Bilbao. A Chilean who gave Athletic three points and one last toast to those who for a time enjoyed Aduriz's insulting facility to make those around him happy. "As soon as I saw the ball go out into the area and I watched him outline ... I had seen him do a lot of Chileans in training and prayed that he would not catch it well, but I saw the goal coming," recalls for EL MUNDO Ernesto Valverde, that rival day, but especially the coach with whom Aduriz lived the best four years of his career. The strikers usually reach their fullness before their thirties, but the donostiarra striker hugged her between the ages of 32 and 36. Until then, he had been a streak scorer, but in that four-year period, it became without warning one of the greatest weapons of mass destruction in Spanish football: 100 goals in 179 games.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2020 by YaKuZa--BoSs
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