Serious knee injuries, very common in soccer, lead soccer players to a long recovery process that becomes a mental battle to compete again. But the case of Èric Montes (27 years old, Manresa), former Barcelona youth player, has broken the norm. His injury helped him stop and recognize his suffering every time he woke up to go to train or play a match. “When I broke my knee, it was one of the best moments of my life mentally, despite the pain. I didn’t have to put on a mask to go to training,” Montes explained last Friday, when he announced his retirement from professional soccer.
The former Algeciras midfielder gave his explanations after the match between his last team and Villarreal B (0-0), and assured that he had been thinking about taking this step for years, specifically since he left Albacete, in 2022. “I haven’t left it before because I wondered what was going to happen to me and I believed that people would say that I was a failure. When I broke my knee, my head clicked,” confessed the footballer from Manresa.
Montes has decided to stop, put professional sports aside and return home. “Now I can start from scratch in Manresa, in my city, and be happy. I want to be at home. I don’t want to suffer anymore,” he argued. Despite this decision, he explained that he does not deny football. “It has given me many nice things, but I don’t want to suffer anymore. I want to enjoy football again with enthusiasm, like a child at recess.”
This Monday, in addition, the former professional footballer has published a statement on social networks in which he has thanked the support received during these three days since the announcement of his retirement and has recognized the great treatment received by Algeciras. “I, Eric Montes, am happy, with enthusiasm and energy to start a new life from scratch away from football with exclusive and professional demands. From today, the only thing I want for myself is to feel enthusiasm, be happy and have energy when I wake up,” he explained.
Èric Montes trained in the FC Barcelona youth team and became the captain of the Barça youth team, where he shared a dressing room with big names such as Marc Cucurella, Iñaki Peña, Óscar Mingueza and Abel Ruiz. Later, he played for Cultural Leonesa, Albacete and Nàstic, until he reached Algeciras, his last club.
The native of Manresa joins a long list of athletes who at some point publicly expressed their bad moment regarding mental health, as did Ricky Rubio, Andrés Iniesta, Simon Biles or .
