For Jackson Martínez, football is just a memory, one of those that hurt, not yet a closed chapter.
Now retired, the Colombian drew on his memory and shared how and where, in his opinion, the difficult physical problems began that forced him to leave the fields.
As he explained in an interview with Win Sports, the story started badly at Atlético de Madrid: “where the injury was, little is said, my injury occurred in the game against Chile in 2015 in Chile. That’s where it comes from. , I came to Atlético de Madrid and they started to treat me for a sprain, when I had that injury about five times, I know what I have is not, because of the pain, because of the road, I knew it wasn’t I knew all kinds of that injury, but didn’t know how serious it was. “
The pain got general, but he wouldn’t give up: “As a player you play with discomfort, you recover and keep going because you trust the doctors who say you have nothing serious. When I start in a game for China I got a very strong step in and that made things worse, they almost broke my shin. And after a few games I did not have surgery and there came a time when I couldn’t even walk.
Then retirement started 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, it was fighting for 5 years. Difficult because one never expects to retire because of an injury but instead make the decision to say so far that I want to play, but in my case it was an injury and it is even more difficult I watch little football because everything is mixed and the emotion takes part in something that people love again, football is a passion that those of us who know about football will only understand ”.
Jackson did not leave because of lack of offers, but because according to him the body did not allow him to continue: “ I had club proposals, but I did not want to go to a club where I did not have to make an effort, I had longer in another club could have played but it could have hurt me more, what I thought was I should go to another club where it took me, where I had to put in more effort and that’s how it happened, I came to Portugal, the first year was difficult , but it went well, after 2 years without playing, I scored goals that helped the team to stay in the First Division. The second year was already quite difficult, with a lot of matches on the outside, but it never came to my mind that I should stop. “