Many human beings deal with illness or injury in order to do their jobs.
Saul Niguez is among the harder cases.
The 22-year-old broke into Atletico Madrid’s set-up after a journey through the young ranks at Real and Atleti, and he wasn’t about to give that up even in the face (and gut) of a kidney shot.
Saul was hurt in a UEFA Champions League battle against Bayer Leverkusen in 2014-15, kicked in the midsection. That left him with catheter, a medical tube, inside his body for the last few years.
That’s roughly 8,000 minutes of match time, and many more hours training.
From Squawka:“For the past two seasons I’ve been using a catheter and after every match or training session I would pee blood and it was certainly not an easy time for me.
“I was gambling with my health and driven by the desire to play first team football for Atleti.”
This is the space normally used to sum up our thoughts on the story. We have a feeling the player’s words work just fine.