Lozano, a battered knee and a book on the market | Sports

He owes it all to his right knee. The good and bad. It has been 10 months since the Buffalo He did not set foot in his arena, and the Palau Blaugrana roared at the eager return of its idol. He returned the affection in the form of a goal. Sergio Lozano (Madrid, 35 years old) returned following his fourth serious knee injury – the first was in 2015, then those in 2016, 2021 and 2023 followed – the day he dreamed of for so long. For years his life has been a constant up and down: leaving and returning once more and once more from the slopes, the death of his father and the birth of his daughter. His doctor warned him that, if he continued, he might have consequences.

But Lozano kept walking. With 32 titles with the Barça shirt since he arrived in 2011, his competitiveness and enthusiasm have not disappeared: in the three games he has played since his return, he has already scored two goals. “My essence is the same. I’m still that competitive player, in love with his sport. I didn’t care when to come back. My only goal was to play, and I have enjoyed the whole way,” says Lozano, sitting on one of the Palau benches. With a perennial smile and joke, he has been preparing a book regarding his life as a therapeutic method. But, above all, he has shared time with Alejandra, his five-year-old daughter: “Being able to enjoy my daughter is what I take away the most from the injury. I was looking forward to her scoring to celebrate by making pigtails.

Sergio Lozano, futsal player for FC Barcelona, ​​posing at the Palau Blaugrana. Maximilian Minocri

And yes, he scored the goal that broke the tie once morest Noia (at the bottom of the league standings) on a night that was for him, and his fans, a fairy tale. “I have dreamed a lot regarding this day. I have waited, and in difficult moments, I visualized myself leaving through the locker room tunnel: seeing the Palau, our people, my family, and the Dracs,” Lozano explains excitedly in reference to the Barça fans.

The noise of that Palau last Saturday counteracts the silence of April 1, 2023 in the semifinals of the Copa del Rey. The game stopped for five minutes, and there was no celebration for the classification. Lozano had been injured: it was his third cruciate ligament tear, and his fourth operation. This time he never thought regarding retreating. But it was not always like this. “The second operation was the most complicated, I had a lot of pain for two years. That was the first time I decided to retire, when I was 28 years old. One day you are on the crest of the wave, and the next day you are out,” shares Lozano. But there was one more. In the third injury in 2021, even his wife, Cristina, asked him to leave him. She brought it up, and told the doctor countless times that she would do it. “After any operation you have to mourn,” says Lozano. But far from pushing those feelings away, he decided to start writing down his thoughts.

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“It has served as therapy for me. I have exposed everything I felt, from the negative to the positive. “I have cried and laughed, and that is reflected in the book,” adds the player. He began writing the first of the 224 pages of Goles y Cicatrices (GeoPlaneta, 2024) alone, until he decided to tell his story and asked his friend and journalist, Llorenç Tarrés, who knows the life of he. And although the main idea was to publish it on April 23, on Sant Jordi – “it is the day I started with my wife, with whom I have been for 16 years,” shares Lozano –, it will finally go on sale on the 10th of the same month. “The idea is that someone who is going through a similar process, from any field, reads it and can get out of it,” explains the player.

The most emotional part of the book is the one regarding the death of his father in 2019. “It was very hard. My father was very culé, and he lived it with passion. He watched all the games, we talked before and following, but he never pressured me. We just enjoyed the journey together, and it is complicated that he is no longer here,” Lozano opens up. His expression changes, and his tone of voice too. More seriously, he looks away at the goal in the middle of the court set up for the photo session, and lowers the volume: “My father died on a Thursday, and on Tuesday I was playing in the Copa del Rey. My tribute was to play and dedicate it to him, to tell him that every day he played and every goal he scored was going to be for him,” confesses the man from Madrid.

Keep fulfilling the promise. Barcelona cannot imagine itself without him. And his play, his return, is a courtesy to the culé fans, to futsal and to sport, but, above all, to himself and his story.

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