David Neres made his official comeback at Ajax last week in the game with Sparta Rotterdam (0-1 victory). The 23-year-old Brazilian striker was nine months out of rotation with a knee injury. During the complicated rehabilitation, which was supposed to last up to two months, Neres even thought about quitting playing soccer, he says in conversation with Ajax TV.

“Even though I smile a lot and make a lot of jokes, it’s impossible to be happy all the time. At that moment I was very upset”, Neres says. He was injured early November in the Champions League game with Chelsea (4-4). “Sometimes I thought of stopping, because it was so difficult. There are two months before such an injury, with me it turned out to be nine. Sometimes I thought it would never be right again. I always tried to continue working happily. In the end I was rewarded.”

Watch the full interview with David Neres here.

“It hasn’t been easy. It didn’t seem easy at first. But during the recovery, complications occurred. My knee didn’t get better. I trained and worked hard, but I didn’t see any improvement. At some point I thought I was working for nothing. You do everything and see no improvement, then you get discouraged,” says the Brazilian attacker. He mainly missed ‘the daily contact with teammates, making jokes with each other and soaking up the atmosphere around matches’. “I actually missed everything. I’ve had a hard time.”

“Now I’m back and stronger than ever. It felt strange to be allowed to play again. I didn’t even know what it was like anymore. Also I was a bit tired and not yet in shape”, confesses Neres. The attacker says he kept his courage thanks to his family. “And the confidence that I have from the inside. Despite my thoughts that it would not be possible to recover, I continued to have confidence and hope to be able to play again. I wanted to come back stronger and show myself that I could. I managed to come back stronger. I want to show that.”