Richarlison enjoyed a wonderful return to action on Sunday, when his brace helped Tottenham beat Newcastle 4-1 to end a five-game winless streak in the Premier League. The Brazilian striker had spent time on the sidelines after undergoing groin surgery. In an interview with the Daily Mail, the former Everton star revealed for how long he struggled with this problem before deciding it was the best to go under the knife.
“I’m very happy to be back playing. I recovered very quickly and this has been an extra motivation for me. Since last year, I had been suffering from these pains and felt a lot especially when it was time to finish,” said Richarlison. “So much so that I didn’t even practice kicking in the warm-up before the games, because it always got worse and I couldn’t do the simplest movements afterwards without feeling discomfort.”
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Richarlison explains why he pushed the surgery
“Out of my desire to help both the club and the national team, I ended up postponing this surgery for many months, until I realized that I was actually harming myself and the teams, as I was not in a good physical condition to continue,” he added.
“I am ‘hungry,’ I always want to play, but I learned this lesson the hard way. If your health and mental health are not up to date, there is no point. A lot of people criticized me, said bad things about me, because I really wasn’t performing at my best, and since my head wasn’t feeling good anymore due to the lack of confidence and off-field matters, which wasn’t great either, everything went down a very bad path.”
