ARSENAL legend Santi Cazorla will write one of football’s greatest fairytales if he leads boyhood club Oviedo to victory in Spain’s second division play-off final.
A home win in front of 30,000 fans on Saturday will return the club to LaLiga after a 24-year-absence and complete an extraordinary swansong for the 40-year-old former Gunner.
Santi Cazorla can send his boyhood club back to the top-flight[/caption]
Skin from arm had to be put on his ankle after surgery[/caption]
Cazorla played 180 games for Arsenal and has been linked with a return as part of the coaching team of his great friend Mikel Arteta.
But first he has what he called on Thursday: “The biggest game of my career, the most special.”
That’s some statement from a player who has won two FA Cups and two Euros with Arsenal and Spain.
Cazorla might even have retired nine years ago had he listened to medics who told him to just be grateful if he could kick a ball around in his back garden with son Enzo.
He ignored that doomsday prognosis and after an operation to rebuild his Achilles he returned to playing after a 22-month absence.
Eventually he signed for Oviedo – vowing to lead them to promotion.
They are 1-0 down against Mirandes from the first leg but any win, including a 1-0 after extra-time, will send them up.
It’s Cazorla who put them in the final with a left-footed free-kick against Almeria four minutes after coming on at half-time in the semis.
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He said: “I’m still right-footed, but I’ve lost a lot of power in my right because of all the operations.”
Cazorla is from Oviedo in northern Spain and joined the club as an eight-year-old in 1995.
The team back then were in the middle of a 13-year stretch in the top flight and had Robert Prosinecki in midfield.
But they developed financial problems and sold the 18-year-old to Villarreal before he’d ever played for them.
By 2003, when Cazorla made his La Liga debut at Villarreal, Oviedo had slipped down to the fourth tier and almost went bust in 2012.
That was the year Cazorla joined Arsenal, scoring in the FA Cup final win in 2014, and winning the cup again the following year.
It was in 2016 when his injury nightmare began. He formed a bond with Arteta because he was also injured and the pair would watch and analyse games together.
He recalls: “I would look at him pausing and rewinding the action and think: this guy has already started being a coach.”
Cazorla’s injury hell lasted almost two years. A bacterial infection had eaten a 10cm chunk out of his right Achilles and attacked his ankle bone leaving it so soft Cazorla said: ‘The doctor could put his finger into it.”
A bit of his hamstring and some muscle from his arm was used to rebuild the tendon, and some of his thigh was used to patch-up his arm.
“I’m like a jigsaw,” he said of the surgery that left half of the tattoo of his daughter India’s name on his arm, and the other half grafted on to his ankle.
When he finally made his return, it was back at Villarreal and then in Qatar playing for his old Spain pal Xavi, before signing for Oviedo in 2023.
“I would play for free but league rules mean you have to accept the minimum wage,” he said of an 80k-salary deal that includes 10 per cent of any shirt sales going to Oviedo’s academy.
The club had originally made him a lucrative offer but he admitted: “My wife said: ‘You’re not going to Oviedo to earn, you’re going home to enjoy it’.”
Cazorla’s wife Ursula would not let him accept a large contract at Oviedo[/caption]
He enjoyed it last season playing 24 games but the club were beaten in the play-off final.
This season he has played almost double the number of minutes and there is a sense that they can go one better and win promotion.
Cazorla said: “Going up with Oviedo would be at the same level as winning the Euros.
If they are promoted the club will urge him to sign for a final season in Spain’s topflight.
But he’ll be 41 and 10 operations have taken their toll. He says “games don’t hurt” but there is daily discomfort.
Retiring on the high of promotion seems more likely and there would be no shortage of coaching opportunities.
He said last year amid talk that Arteta would welcome him into his staff: “Arsenal have never closed the door to me.”
This week he wouldn’t be drawn on his future, asked what plans he had if Oviedo win promotion, he would only answer: “I’ll celebrate.”
