-
Nieuws
- 2 hours ago
Former Premier League star targets 'miracle' comeback after three years out with horror knee infection
Martin Macdonald
- 16 Feb 2026 06:01 CST
- 11 min read
Nieuws
Gerard Deulofeu hasn't given up hope of one day making a "miracle" return to football three years after he last played a competitive match.
A La Masia graduate, Deulofeu was once viewed as one of the most promising players of his generation in Barcelona's youth system. Despite his talent, he was never viewed as a key player in his time with the club and eventually went out on loan to Everton and then Sevilla before making a permanent switch to The Toffees in 2015.
After a brief stint back at Barcelona in 2017, he would then swap Watford for Udinese.
In November of 2022, Deulofeu suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in a Serie A match between Udinese and Napoli. Though this is obviously a serious injury, players routinely recover to get back to playing football.
His proved more complicated, however, as his cartilage became infected which led to the muscle in his knee wasting away.
The Spaniard's last competitive football match came against Sampdoria well over 1,000 days ago and he only lasted 37 minutes as he came back from injury too early as the extent of the damage to his knee was not yet clear.
"I lost all my personal life," he told BBC Sport.
"That's the most hurtful thing that you can feel. Now I am just waiting to do a miracle to be back playing football. But I know it is so difficult to come back with that type of incapacity.
"You do the surgery and you change your ACL, your system, and you do a progressive recovery. But the problem was the infection. I wasn't the luckiest person."
One man and a compatriot who went through something similar was Santi Cazorla, who went a period in his career of not playing for 636 days due to gangrene eating away at his Achilles tendon.
Cazorla successfully made that comeback to the game, and Deulofeu uses that as inspiration.
"It is an amazing example," he said. "To imagine how he suffered in these two years and a half, I can feel it now."
The state of play
At the moment, Deulofeu is still in the recovery process as he's had a few false starts, coming back to heavy training perhaps a little too soon.
However, he is focused on building sufficient "muscle, muscle, muscle" in his knee that will allow him to start running again.
"My knee needed to heal," he explains. "To train hard, first you have to heal.
"Let's see if I can accept impact. I am so happy because I feel the leg is really strong. The more muscle you get, the less pain you have inside the knee, so now I feel that, yes, my knee is prepared to run.
"I am feeling that I am close. If we speak about muscle, I am in the same levels of the available guys now.
"But let's see how they respond, with no cartilage and no meniscus..."
In January of 2025, his contract with Udinese was mutually terminated to allow him to focus on his recovery, with the club providing him with the facilities to do so.
The silver lining of being out of action so long is that it has allowed Deulofeu to be more present as a father and he says his children are the main inspiration for him to continue working towards a comeback.
"In those three years I am out of my work, my passion, I can see how good it is just being at home," he confessed.
"Just being with your family, with your kids, looking at them growing and being a father, because with football you lose a lot of good periods, good moments.
"There are a lot of games now in modern football, every three or four days you play, and your kids are growing so fast.
"My big daughter is eight years old and she is playing football, and my son is five and also playing football. Now they are telling me: 'When are you going to get back? I want to go with you to the stadium!'
"That type of history with the kids, that gives me the power to continue and to fight for being there with them, enjoy that moment with them now they are older."
There is no timeline on a return for the former Barcelona and Everton star, but it seems likely any return will be with Udinese due to the close relationship he holds with the owners, the Pozzo family.
The FootballTransfers app
Check out FootballTransfers' new app for all of football's big storylines, transfer rumours and exclusive news in one convenient place directly on your mobile device.
The FootballTransfers app is available in the Apple App Store. Download here:
Read more about:
Serie A
Gerard Deulofeu
