Arjen Robben was sidelined for quite some time after the injury he sustained against PSV. On Sunday against FC Utrecht, the regular FC Groningen could make his comeback and Robben participated as a substitute for fifteen minutes against the Domstedelingen. The attacker was unable to make the difference in the game that ultimately ended in 0-0, but is happy that he has his first minutes of play back in his legs.

“Getting through it just as well is a thing,” Robben responds in conversation with it Algemeen Dagblad. “I tried to play normally and that took some getting used to. I did have two or three moments when a pass just didn’t arrive. For me the game could have lasted ten minutes longer, because with every touch you get in better. This is a start; on to an entire training week so that I can go to the next match with it. ”

After his retiring in the first game of the season, Robben had to deal with the necessary comment, even suggesting that ‘he better quit again’. The 36-year-old wing tip, however, indicates that he attaches little value to this: “It is different when my trainer or wife says ‘Ar, wrap up those shoes, give it up’. But that did not happen. Those comments are part of it, you know that, ”he says. “I had nice messages and a lot of support and I had the switch quite quickly.”

Unlike in the past, Robben also tries to look at his football career with a little more relaxation: “Don’t be too focused. For me it is always the full one hundred percent with everything, in training, competitions and the experience of a duel. Now I look for a bit more relaxation now and then. ”

The match against FC Utrecht also meant a reunion with Eljero Elia, who knows Robben well from the Dutch national team. Elia was also associated with an employment contract with FC Groningen in the last transfer period, so Robben could not help emphasizing: “I said to him: if you had come here, you would not have been sitting on the couch”, he joked about his fellow attacker, who participated as a substitute for the last seventeen minutes on the side of FC Utrecht.