Real Madrid midfielder Dani Ceballos has revealed the full extent of the injury his sustained at last summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Ceballos, formerly on loan at Arsenal from Real Madrid, said that the fractured talus he sustained in Sapporo and subsequent misdiagnosis that allowed him to play only three weeks later nearly saw his career prematurely ended.
The Spaniard said that after a short spell on the sidelines at the tournament believing he was building himself back up to full strength, he tried to for Spain's Olympics gold medal match with Brazil.
Naturally, he lost his fitness race to be ready for that game and it turned out to be a blessing in disguise with Ceballos revealing that he was only 20 more minutes of action away from never being able to play again.
He told Marca: It has been the worst five months of my life. My ankle did not respond to me.'
'I tried to play the final with a bad medical report where they told me that I had an injury of 2-3 weeks where only the ligament was affected,' he added.
'Well, no. When I arrived in Madrid it turned out that I had a fracture of the talus, a bone that supports a great deal of body weight.'
The talus sits beneath the heel bone and the two bones in the lower leg, the tibia and fibula.
He added: 'The doctors told me that if I had played 20 more minutes after the two infiltrations, I would no longer be able to play football.'
Ceballos said he returned to Spain and was sent to a 'expensive' physio in Barcelona where he was nurtured back to full health. He said that he only has them to thank as there is no 'trace' of the injury left.
'The recovery, it has been expensive, with treatment in Barcelona, a physio who has gone out of his way for me, external people… I have to thank everyone that there is no trace left,' he said.
Despite overcoming his battle with a quite serious injury, Ceballos has found minutes at Real Madrid this season hard to come by.
The triumvirate of Toni Kroos, Casemiro and Luka Modric is the preferred midfield of manager Carlo Ancelotti and Ceballos's public outrage at the Italian back in January over a substitution shows just how frustrating it has got at times for the player.
His contract expires in 2023 but said that negotiations between him and the club had not yet begun.
'I have one year left on my contract, we haven't talked about it anymore, neither about renewing nor offers.
'There is a very important game left and then we'll talk.'
