For Jackson Martínez, football is just a memory, one of those that hurt, which is not yet a closed chapter.
Now in retirement, the Colombian turned to memory and explained how and where, in his opinion, began the difficult physical problems that were forcing him to say goodbye to the tracks.
As he explained in an interview with Win Sports, the story started badly at Atletico Madrid: “where the injury was little talked about, my injury happened in the match against Chile, in 2015 in Chile. Hence, I come to Atletico Madrid and they start treating a sprain, when I had this injury about five times, I know that what I have is not that, because of the pain, because of the shape, I knew it wasn’t that. the types of that injury, but I didn’t know how serious it was. ”
The pain became commonplace, but he did not want to give up: “you as a player play with discomfort, recover and continue because you trust the doctors who say you have nothing serious. When I start for China in one match I got a very strong entry and that made everything worse, I almost broke my tibia. and after a few matches, I didn’t have surgery and there came a time when I couldn’t even step on it. “
Even then retirement began to be the only option: “after 2015 it was a struggle, a lot of people told me not to give up, but I didn’t give up, but I couldn’t and shouldn’t anymore, they were 5 years of fighting.It’s still hard because one never expects to retire because of an injury, but making the decision to say so far I want to play, but in my case it was an injury and it’s even harder. because it revolves around everything and the emotion takes part in something you love again, football is a passion that those of us who know football will only understand. “
Jackson was not for lack of offers but because, as he explained, the body no longer allowed him to continue: “I had club proposals, but I didn’t want to go to a club where I didn’t have to make an effort, I could have played more time in another club, but it could have hurt me more, what I thought was that I needed to go to another club where it cost me, where I had to make more effort and so it happened, I came to Portugal, the first year was difficult but it went well for me, after 2 years without playing I scored goals that helped the team stay in the First Division. Already the second year was quite difficult, with many games away, but it never entered my mind that I had to stop. “