'Maybe it's the most difficult recovery in history. I can do it'

Gerard Deulofeu on his battle to play again for Udinese, almost three years after his last game

- Nick Ames

The morning light is still sharpening, training its beam through the windows at the far end of the gym. Around the walls, painted black up to halfway, are motivational slogans that have become common currency in training environments. “Go hard or go home,” one of them urges. “Hard work beats talent, when talent chooses not to work hard,” cautions another.

Beneath the second of those messages, Gerard Deulofeu stands in conversation with Angel Aceña, Udinese’s rehab fitness coach. They are a team now, working towards a goal that never quite stands still. It is 8.30am and, as always, Deulofeu has been here for half an hour. There has been a session on one set of weights and shortly he will cross the room for another, checking a monitor for the latest notes of optimism. There is not another footballer in sight.

Just after 10.15am Deulofeu emerges from the dressing room area and sits down gingerly beside the Bluenergy Stadium pitch. There is a plaster on his right leg slightly above the knee; he has just undergone his monthly injection and nearly 33 months after he last played a game the consequences are nothing new. “For the first 24 hours it’s ... urgh,” he says, wincing. At close quarters, the difference between the visible mass of his legs is pronounced.

Deulofeu wants to create a miracle: for himself and for every player who, like him, is forced to handle the isolation and stifling uncertainty wreaked by devastating injury. “I know I’m trying something special,” says the 31-year-old. “Maybe it’s the most difficult recovery in history. If I manage to come back it’ll be more than 1,000 days. But I’m a guy who takes care of himself and I think I can do it. If there’s one guy to do it, it’s me.”