Former Spain international reveals injury hell: “I was ashamed to train with my teammates”

Former Atletico Madrid and Malaga midfielder Ignacio Camacho, a former Spain international, has spoken out about his injury nightmare after retiring, aged just 30.

Camacho confirmed his retirement last month due to an ongoing ankle injury, which plagued him for the last three years of his career whilst at German club Wolfsburg.

“Throughout the three years you realized that after each operation you could not return. Your head and your desire made you be on the pitch but the reality is that each training session and each game was an ordeal,” Camacho explained, as per Marca.

“Two years ago, when I was still able to play, the previous months from Monday to Friday I was ashamed to train with my teammates because I could only be at 30 percent.

“Then the game would arrive and with adrenaline I would play 90 minutes, I would take an anti-inflammatory and I was running forwards, but that was deceiving me. Sooner or later I knew I had to undergo surgery.”

A product of Atleti’s youth system, Camacho made 50 first-team appearances for the club and netted for the club as a 17-year-old in La Liga.

Joining Malaga in January 2011, he went on to make 199 official appearances for the Andalusians, becoming their captain and forming a key part of the team that reached the 2012-13 Champions League quarter-finals.

Camacho then moved to Germany in 2017 but was restricted to a meagre 21 appearances across three seasons, and despite being instilled as club captain he could never shake off a long-term ankle injury.

Camacho won one cap for the Spanish national time, in a 2014 friendly defeat against Germany.

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