Evening nostalgia for Sergio Ramos (35). The iconic defender will soon hear the Champions League anthem in Santiago Bernabeu. Only it will be from the stands. At PSG, the Spaniard is plagued by injuries. How did the unyielding gladiator fall?
It was on nights like this that PSG brought him to Paris.
With four Champions League titles at Real Madrid on his palmares, Sergio Ramos finally had to bring the cup with the big ears to the city of lights.
Tonight, keeping a clean sheet in Madrid is enough to get one step closer to that big goal. Then you can use an unyielding defender.
Only: Ramos is not ready for battle.
At the Royal, the captain was a certainty at the crucial moments for more than a decade, but in Paris the counter is only three games after more than six months. Ramos also traveled to Madrid as a “mascot” due to a lingering calf injury.
It is an agony that has been going on for almost a year and a half now.
Obsessed with body
However, Sergio Ramos is a member of the select circle of football players that you associate with unbreakability.
A gladiator made up of only muscles who camps just as often in the gym as on the field. Ramos is also known among colleagues and teammates as a superpro who is obsessive about his body. It was no surprise that he opened his own gym in the Spanish capital.
In his Madrid villa of 12 million euros, there was also an impressive gym to maintain his “temple”. And even a hyperbaric oxygen chamber to aid recovery. Invariably there was also an army of personal physiotherapists ready to treat every part of the Spaniard’s body in detail.
It meant that Ramos – despite his physically grueling playing style – was rarely sidelined at Real Madrid for more than a month.
Aura of invulnerability
About a year and a half ago, however, Ramos lost his aura of invulnerability. His left knee started to struggle and kept the defender sidelined for several games.
Ramos fought the pain, but had to go under the knife in early 2021. A particularly unfortunate timing as negotiations were underway for a new contract with Real Madrid at the time.
Chairman Florentino Perez saw the injury as the ideal excuse to bring down Ramos’ salary costs. The length of the contract was also a point of contention – Real only wanted to give one year, Ramos wanted two. Ultimately, the negotiations bled to death. “However, I wanted to end my career at Real,” Ramos lamented.
Soon after his unintentional farewell, the icon would receive another blow. Luis Enrique left the captain with doubts about his physical preparedness from the European Championship selection.
A bomb in Spain.
“This hurts,” said Ramos. “The best thing I can do now is make a full recovery and come back stronger next year.”
Unwinnable battle against age
Due to his excellent reputation, interested teams lined up for the transfer-free Ramos. In the end, the choice fell on PSG, which offered the Spaniard a lucrative two-year contract of 11 million euros.
Together with other top signings Lionel Messi and Gianluigi Donnarumma, Achraf Hakimi and Giorgio Wijnaldum, Ramos beamed in mid-August before the first home game in the Parc des Princes.
Seven months later, the harsh reality is that Ramos was by far the least active of all those stars. Due to persistent injuries, he only played three games.
Immediately after his arrival, the defender was struck down by a calf injury that kept him out for 19 games. After his late debut at the end of November, another muscle injury immediately followed. And when that was healed, Ramos relapsed again in his calf injury.
A real agony.
At the age of 35, Ramos looks like the umpteenth footballer who is fighting an unwinnable battle against his age. And according to some experts, the Spaniard is now paying double the toll for the years of looting on his body.
In recent months, the French press has logically been buzzing with rumors that PSG would prematurely terminate Ramos’ lucrative contract.
Even a pension from Ramos blew through the corridors. But in a documentary on Amazon, the protagonist brushed that point off the table. “Because of all those injuries, you constantly have negative thoughts and you start to doubt yourself.”
“But I continue to believe that through hard work I can continue playing football for another four or five years. I just have to mentally continue to bite.”
Who knows, the reunion with his familiar arena will give the fallen gladiator courage again.
