Villarreal captain Bruno Soriano has explained how he wanted to ‘enjoy every second’ after making his first appearance in over three years.
Prior to Monday night’s La Liga draw against Sevilla, the central midfielder had not played a competitive game for the club since a 3-1 victory at Valencia in May 2017 and had been out over three years of action with recurring knee injuries.
“I was prepared to get the most out of it. I had no time to adjust. I wanted to enjoy every second I was on the pitch,” Soriano said after the game, as cited by El Mundo Deportivo. “I felt good and in two minutes my nerves were gone.
“Right now I don’t want to think about the future, only tomorrow and ending the season – we have a very good team and we want to reach the European positions. The match against Valencia is very important for us.
“My feelings? I am very happy, I had a hard time falling asleep because of everything in my head and even though I missed the fans, my teammates made the day very special for me.
“There have been a lot of difficult moments and tough days, but I am so happy to be back.”
The defensive midfielder has spent the entirety of his career at the Yellow Submarine and has clocked up 418 first-team appearances for the club, alongside winning 10 caps for the Spanish national team.
It had been expected that the experienced midfielder would sit out the entirety of the 2019-20 campaign but the three month suspension of football has allowed him to recover for the final stretch of the season.
With seven matches remaining in the current campaign, Soriano is likely to feature in more games particularly with teams in La Liga now being allowed to make five substitutions per match.
