How did “the warrior” Ada Hegerberg get through these 21 months away from football?

There were tears of joy from Reggio Emilia (Italy) in 2016. Five years later, we must add those from Gothenburg (Sweden) to the strong emotions experienced by Ada Hegerberg in the Lyon jersey. After all, a return to competition after 21 months of injuries, struggles and doubts is well worth a Champions League debut at 20, right? During a dozen minutes of this European match, on October 5 against BK Häcken (0-3), the Golden Ball was finally able to find its passion. And the 13 OL Ang’Elles supporters present were thrilled, from his first sprint to his final emotion when he came to thank them after the match.

“We felt her transfigured compared to the Ada who avoided coming to see us during her long injury,” indicates Willy pasche, from OL Ang’Elles. There, she immediately behaved like a boss and she ran and tackled everywhere when she came into play, it was the Ada before. The group of supporters of the women’s OL has prepared a banner, in view of the match against Benfica this Thursday (9 pm), to welcome the return to the OL Park of the Norwegian striker. Lyon fans have sometimes feared the worst, since January 28, 2020, the day of the announcement of the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee. “His return is really a great relief for everyone here, because the rumor of a possible end of career has circulated for a long time,” explains Willy Pasche.

“It’s as if we had cut off his oxygen”

The news would have been terrible, at 26, just as it has already been the case at OL for the former promising midfielder Gueïda Fofana, deemed “unfit for the practice of football”, at only 25 years old, after osteonecrosis of the right ankle. “She was at the top, Golden Ball 2018, she remained on an incredible Champions League final [un triplé contre le Barça en mai 2019], recalls her ex-teammate and still friend
Corine Petit. And there, she was necessarily crossed by great doubts, even if she is a fighter and she knew she would bounce back. It’s especially hard when you set your sights on important return dates, such as the C1 Final 8 in summer 2020, and then there is a relapse. “

“She went through a period with lows that went down very low,” said OL coach Sonia Bompastor, just after the match against Häcken. The Norwegian striker’s first coach at OL (from 2014 to 2017), Gérard Prêcheur, tries to understand what she may have gone through, just like her teammate Griedge Mbock (18 months away after a ruptured tendon Achilles left which required two operations).

The worst that can happen to a top athlete has happened to him. Six months of absence after crusaders is already excessively long. But there, with that stress fracture in the tibia afterwards, it’s an incredible ordeal that I dare not imagine. It is as if his oxygen had been cut off all this time. “

Five days of rest necessary, “emotionally and physically”

This oxygen, Ada Hegerberg found in part last week in Sweden. “I missed the world of football a lot,” admitted the interested party in an interview for the site 90 minutes. When I stepped into the game, I felt an overwhelming sense of warm welcome from everyone. There is still a lot of hard work ahead of me. But being a footballer again is a joy for me, I just try to have fun. “The Lyon club, which considers that it is” still too early “to comment in detail on the return to competition of its phenomenal scorer (220 goals in 183 games with OL), obviously sets up a specific management concerning it. .

Sonia Bompastor explained on Wednesday that Ada Hegerberg was entitled to five days off after the match in Gothenburg because “she needed it, emotionally and physically”. During this interminable absence of 625 days, OL certainly added to its record a D1 (shortened) and a 7th Champions League in 2020, but it especially lived its first season without a title for 15 years. All but a coincidence to believe the Lyon supporters, who saw a team struggling to find an effective center forward. “In spite of ourselves, we sometimes blame the players who replace Ada, quite simply because they are not Ada”, summarizes Willy Pasche.

“Already in normal times, she is an outstanding winner …”

Exactly, what should we expect from the top scorer in the history of the Champions League, who had extended in December 2020, in full recovery, her contract with OL until 2024? “Ada is still young, she is very hardworking and she has a perfect hygiene of life, insists Corine Petit. She may have a different game, but she will become a great player again. “Gérard Prêcheur also assures him” not to be more worried than that “concerning this recovery.

“His long period of suffering, associated with his mental qualities and this selflessness that I know him, that in my opinion removes the doubts that could in normal times accompany such a return, entrusts the former Lyon coach. Already in normal times, she is an outstanding winner, a warrior with such a rage in her, so here I do not even dare to imagine … “All of Lyon is eager to discover the quasi-second career of this” fighter With the iconic blonde braid.


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