In the early morning of June 28, Beijing time, the Spanish second division team Real Oviedo Club officially announced that it had renewed the contract of 39-year-old veteran Santi Cazorla for one year, and the latter will play for the team until June 2025. This former Arsenal famous glass man is still full of vitality at this age, and it is estimated that many people did not expect it.
Born in December 1984, Cazorla will be in her own year at the end of the year. Last summer, he left Qatar's Al Sadd on a free transfer to join Real Oviedo in the second division, where Cazorla's football dream began. Last season, Cazorla made 26 appearances for Oviedo and provided four assists in all competitions to lead the side to the promotion play-offs, but lost 2-1 to Espanyol over two legs. However, the veteran's performance was still recognized by the club, and with his one-year contract about to expire, Real Oviedo finally decided to extend his contract with Cazorla for another year, allowing the veteran to continue to roam the green field.
Cazorla probably never dreamed that he would be able to play for seven seasons in a row after leaving Arsenal when his contract expired in August 2018, and he has not stopped chasing his football dream. A graduate of the Oviedo Academy, Cazorla started his career with the likes of Villarreal, Huelva and Malaga. In August 2012, he landed in the Premier League for €19 million and became part of the Gunners Arsenal. In his first season for the Gunners, Cazorla recorded a double-double of 12 goals and 13 assists in 49 games.
As a midfielder, Cazorla, who is only 1.68m tall, obviously has no physical advantage, but he has a distinctive technical characteristic, excellent left and right foot skills, and has a wide field of vision and super game reading ability, can send accurate passes for teammates, can also speed on the wing, when the game is deadlocked, Cazorla can even change the situation on the field with a long shot.
However, just as Cazorla was playing like a fish in water, bad luck came to the door. In October 2016, the Spanish midfielder was sidelined for three weeks with an ankle injury, which was considered a minor injury by everyone at the time, including himself. However, since then, Cazorla has been mired in endless injuries and eventually declared out for the season, and throughout 2017/18, Cazorla has not returned. In May 2018, Arsenal announced that they would not renew his contract, and Cazorla's six-year career as a Gunners came to an end.
The answer to what Cazorla has experienced in the 636 days of recuperation is 10 surgeries, 8 of which were ankle surgeries, 10cm of Achilles tendon was removed, and the skin of the ankle was completely scrapped and had to be grafted from the arm. To make matters worse, Cazorla also suffered an extremely rare bacterial infection and was confined to crutches for the rest of her life.
However, such a blow did not bring Cazorla to his knees. In the summer of 2018, his old club Villarreal extended an olive branch to him, and Cazorla, who returned to La Liga, also repaid the trust of his old club with a quasi-double-double of 7 goals and 11 assists in 46 games. The 35-year-old veteran, who has been reduced to a waste in the Premier League, has regained his former state of bravery, which is simply a miracle in the history of medicine. When talking about the secret of his second spring, Cazorla also admitted that it was the doctor's wrong diagnosis at the beginning, which was the most important reason why he almost said goodbye to football and even took crutches as his companion, to put it bluntly, he met a quack doctor. Fortunately, Arsenal's abandonment allowed this mistake to be inadvertently remedied, and Cazorla was able to continue playing until now.
Today's Cazorla is close to the age of no confusion, but what hasn't changed is his love for football. To be able to see this ill-fated veteran galloping across the pitch is a blessing for fans who like him.