CastelldefelsHe has been away from the pitch for almost a year now. Bruna Vilamala, Barça player, tore the cruciate ligaments in her knee, for the second time, at the start of a match with the Spanish national team in October 2021. The injury that is the particular executioner of women’s sport he has become enraged with the promise of La Masia. Cruciate ligament injuries have been a plague in the Barça dressing room and its latest victim, Alexia Putellas. But she doesn’t plan to give up. Although she admits there have been very tough weeks and even months, she is ready to get back on the grass as soon as possible. He is only twenty years old.
Where are you at with the injury?
— It has been a very complicated few months. It is an injury that I had already suffered and I already knew everything that was coming to me and the phases that I would go through. It’s a very long injury, with many phases, and it’s mentally hard to take, especially without help. Now I can say that I am well and strong. I see the light at the end of the tunnel. So all I have left is downloading. Now it’s football, which is what I want. I’m fine because I’m looking forward to it. I’m touching the ball slightly, very little, but I feel comfortable. I haven’t lost anything. What’s more, I think I’ve won, because physically I’m better than when I got injured.
You were injured with the Spanish national team last October. Did you already know it was a cruciate ligament injury when you fell to the ground?
— When I get injured and fall to the ground I don’t even burst into tears. I’m in shock saying, “It can’t be. You can’t have re-injured your cruciates.” It was very hard. I remember that the first month he did not react. I was in such shock… It was at the time of the operation that I was like, “Wow, it’s happened to me again and I’ve got twelve months of recovery coming up.” It is an injury that has many protocols, many steps to follow. I was anxious to know what all was coming to me. It happened to me in the opposite way to other colleagues who had taken the second injury better than the first.
How does this suffering affect you?
— She doubted whether she was ready to face the injury again. Doing it once is complicated, but going back and reliving all those moments you’ve already lived… It’s difficult and I’d be lying to you if I told you those months were good, because they weren’t. Those days are long gone now and we are in another phase of full projection towards the return to grass. Without the help of my family, friends and teammates I might not have had the strength to carry on. Luckily, I have very good people by my side who help me day by day.
Did you consider folding?
— There are specific moments of everything. This injury is a rollercoaster. Maybe on Monday you get up and face life with great strength and maybe on Tuesday you don’t see anything clearly and it’s hard to get up. At some point during the most complicated days, I did think if it was worth doing all this to play again. With the second injury I was much more afraid that it would happen again. The first time I thought, “OK, I’ve injured myself, but it won’t happen again.” And it happened again. Yes, there is a time to say: “Is everything I’m doing now worth it?” Luckily, in my case, they have been very punctual and I have had people around me who have given me the advice they needed at every moment.
What helped you get through it?
— Psychological help from professionals is essential. They remind you of everything you used to do, they remind you of how you were when you were good. You see it’s worth it. Every day that passes and that I see recovery closer, I am more proud of all the steps I have taken: how I have taken this injury, worse than the first. And right now I really want to move forward and I see that it is worth doing all this. My dream is to be able to dedicate myself to playing football, because I enjoy it. It’s not a job, but a way of life.
It has been key to your recovery.
— When you go through a period of many days of not raising your head, luckily I had been through that and I knew that psychological help was essential. I already needed it when I was in the dynamics of the team. I thank the help that Barça has given me since I was young, giving me psychological support. When I’m not well, I notice it and I know I have to tell the physio so he knows I won’t work the same that day or there’s a greater risk of something happening: you’re not as focused because you’re not having a good few days. I’m lucky to have this ease of interpretation when I’m down. I don’t find it hard to ask for help and I don’t find it hard to turn to people I trust to tell them how I feel.
You study psychology, did you help yourself in a way?
– Yes! I was saying to myself, “Okay, you feel this way, but you have to do this this way.” When I go to the psychologist and tell her in detail how I feel, I start to redirect my thoughts [riu]. I think the psychological part is very important, whether you are injured or not.
What has changed in that Bruna who broke her cruciate ligaments for the first time in 2018?
— Before the first injury, Bruna was a hard worker and demanding of herself. That he fought for everything, and that part hasn’t changed. But after the first injury the self-demand changed. Not to lower it, but to regulate it. I have learned to live in the moment and to regulate. I think more in the present, in what I live. If I can do something now, I do it, because you never know what can happen. Bruna from the first injury was putting things off, she thought she would do it, and now she doesn’t. Everything I had to do to live with Barça was to enjoy it, moreover. We all enjoyed it a lot, but I think in a different way because I knew what it was like to spend a year away from the field of play. Bruna from the second injury will suffer much more from day to day, from everything she has. Sometimes we get into a routine and stop valuing everything we have, and this injury taught me again that you have to value what you have because tomorrow you might not have it anymore. There has been a radical change and there will be a change in mentality and way of doing things.
