Virginia Torrecilla: "Football has given me everything and thanks to sport I'm here"

On the controversy in the national team: "It makes me sad that women's football is always talked about for something bad"

MADRID, 22 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Atlético de Madrid player Virginia Torrecilla asserted that football has given her "everything" and that "thanks to sport" she is still alive, after having overcome a brain tumor, a disease that has made her change "a lot" as a person, for now "work" in order to recover his level prior to the diagnosis, which has become his "illusion and purpose".

"I work day after day to be the same Virginia at a sports level. Little by little I am achieving it, I have minutes left to play and reach that level, but I go without rest, I work every day to continue improving," he stressed in an interview with Europa Press, on the occasion of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the AECC and Ausonia campaign.

Torrecilla was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the spring of 2020, when he had to leave the playing fields, those that the doctors warned him that he would not step on again due to the disease. Still, the midfielder has always considered herself a "very positive" person and she was convinced that she would "little by little" improve to "get out of all this".

"However, when I start chemotherapy and I start to feel weak, I realize everything I'm going through. I thought it was going to be different, that I'd handle it better, but no, I realized that I wasn't as strong as I expected. That was a turning point, to know that life is today and you can never think about tomorrow", reflected the soccer player.

The most demanding and complicated 'game' of his life caused him a very strong physical weakness, although the "hardest" thing was dealing with the disease "psychologically". "It has cost me a lot to overcome it, I still work to continue improving, because the blow was very hard," he confessed, with his family and friends as great support.

"My family and I are getting over it, we are trying to cope as well as possible and adapting to this new life. I have always been aware of who I have been and how I have done it, I want to thank everyone for helping me get up," he acknowledged.

The player took advantage of her position as a public figure to recount the entire process derived from cancer from the beginning, surrounded by people even outside the world of soccer. "There are people who did not know me, saw the news and wrote to me, giving me their maximum support. A part of all this is thanks to them, who write to me and I always answer. Now I want to help them and give them something good in their lives, before I was the one who was in that situation", commented the footballer.

In addition, he does not hesitate to ensure that his true support, especially in times of more extreme confinement due to the pandemic, was sports, in general, and soccer, in particular. "Yesterday I looked at the agenda that I wrote in my chemo process, and one of the paragraphs says that I did not leave the house, I only went to see my classmates play. I was so weak and had so little desire to do things...", he explained.

For this reason, her teammates, "unfortunately, with COVID", were her "family". For this reason, he assured that football has given him "everything", both "good things" and "bad things, many bad things too". "But thanks to the sport I am here, and thanks to them I continue working to be the Virginia that I was, it is my hope and purpose," she revealed.

If one of his turning points in the long-distance race against the disease was his first chemotherapy session, Torrecilla also remembers his debut very well. On January 23, 2022, Atlético's '14' wore the red and white shirt again and put on their boots in the Spanish Super Cup, after almost 700 days away from the pitch. "It's a very special and very beautiful memory. I thought a thousand times about what my redebut would be like and I never would have thought it would be like that," he recalled.

"It was historic, something that Spanish sport will never forget, it is an image for all time. The most beautiful thing is that they keep a person, forgetting the colors, someone who has been through a lot, with my teammates and friends leading that moment" , she added, excited and already with a smile.

Currently, the footballer is experiencing her first season completely recovered from the start, "very excited", both "personally" and for the team for this course. "There are many young women, eager to compete, and that is the most beautiful thing of all," she affirmed, although she sees the possibility of returning to the national team, a team of which she became captain, far away.

"I need minutes with my team, and that's what I have in mind now. There is a very important World Cup, people are going to continue working and fighting to be there, those who have to go will have to go, we'll see how everything goes", express.

Finally, regarding the controversy over the 15 soccer players who have resigned from the team led by Jorge Vilda, until the situation with the coach improves, Torrecilla admitted that she is "sorry" that women's soccer is "always" news "for something bad" . "People always talk about things they don't know, and that harms us. We have to fight together, go for it all, to leave women's football at the top, and that people accompany us," he settled.