Before lockdown measures were brought in, Maxi Gómez had been set to miss most of the remainder of the LaLiga season due to a foot injury and subsequent surgery. With the reorganised schedule, the Uruguayan now has a chance to help Valencia CF out in their final 11 games, and he returned to training with a group last week.

“I’m very happy to be back training with my teammates and to be able to have a dialogue with them. We’re preparing in the best possible way for when LaLiga starts up again,” the striker told VCF Media.

“I’ve been feeling very good. I’ve been back with the group, training with them and with the coaching staff. We have to keep moving forward. We had a lot of dialogue with the doctors. I was told what I had to do for rehab.

“I’ve been training at home, doing weights and the exercises that the staff have sent me. I was taking it day-by-day, but always training hard so that I could come back stronger than ever. I want to help the team, which is fundamental.”

After working his way back to fitness with his typical dedication, Gómez is looking forward to the restart of the LaLiga campaign -even if it is held behind closed doors.

“We want to play as soon as possible. These two months without any games were tough, and made training and staying motivated harder. Now LaLiga is coming back, which is the nicest thing.

“The Valencia CF fans are very hard to play against, as I know from when I was at Celta Vigo. They transmit a lot, which for me makes them the twelfth man. They give the team a lot of strength when we are going through a tough time in a game. They start singing and motivate everybody. They make us strong. We’ll always be together, and we’ll be back in together in every sense whenever that happens. We have to get through the games that remain.”