The former head of Madrid’s medical services, the Croatian Niko Mihic, changes his expression when he starts talking about Balkan blood and remembering the ancient history of those lands. He goes back to Roman times to remember everything they have had to fight for and how it has chiseled his competitive spirit. “Geography has forced us to be warriors,” he says. A moment of expansion in the hustle and bustle of the sports medicine congress that began yesterday and continues today at the HM Sanchinarro University Hospital, in Madrid, to chat with colleagues from Manchester United, Milan, Leverkusen, Arsenal and the Los Angeles Lakers about repair of cartilage, the Achilles tendon or the damn tear of the anterior cruciate ligament. “The most feared,” he clarifies.
Those were his daily griefs and losses until last November, when after seven seasons he stopped being the head of Real Madrid’s medical services. “It is an issue that the press has exaggerated. We talked and he went by mutual agreement. I only have gratitude to the club. Let them take away what I danced. I believe that what I have done there is impossible to do better,” says Mihic, who says that he has remained as “medical advisor” of the entity. “They value my experience, performance and dedication. If they need something, they ask me and I answer,” adds the Balkan, whose figure has generated debate in recent months, especially due to cases such as the injuries of young Arda Güler. “I didn’t meet anyone who was difficult to manage. I didn’t do my job despite them, but because of them (in reference to the costumes). Once you transmit that message, there is no problem,” says Mihic, now far from the “emotional and physical wear and tear” of the white team’s first line.
Sitting mid-morning in an empty room, relaxed and, at times, smiling, what he does raise a wall of discretion is when commenting on specific problems, such as that of Thibaut Courtois, who suffered a torn meniscus on Tuesday. the right knee when he was going to return from the torn cruciate on the left. “I’m sure he’s going to come back perfectly, stronger. We would like to say who is to blame, but there is not. They are things that happen. It’s a bit of a political answer, sorry, but I have to give it like this,” Mihic excuses himself, warning that with broken crusaders there is little prevention that is worth it. “We have analyzed it in a thousand ways and, unfortunately, they happen. They are not predictable. You can’t do anything different from what we are doing,” he stresses.
Real Madrid was his first and, he says, his last experience in a high-level club. “In my career in the ER, I have seen between 15 and 20,000 patients a year. Over two decades, you reach a very high number of pathologies treated. So once you know that, it gives you a certain level of confidence to say you can do anything. And then, being a Madrid fan, what more can you ask for? ”Explains the doctor about how he accepted the position of head of Madrid’s medical services.
“What moves me is adrenaline. I experienced it in the emergency room, with so many mortal or premortal pathologies, and I have rediscovered it in football. That has been my great personal benefit. There are no deaths, but the adrenaline level is there. And then, to be a good doctor you have to be very rebellious. You fight against death knowing that you are going to lose,” says Mihic, who says that “winning a Champions League is comparable to saving the life of a dying person or diagnosing an illness.”
Modric and the young people
And what is a football locker room like? “Ugh,” he huffs. “I tell all patients six things to be healthy: not smoking, taking care of your intake, weight, rest, and the fifth is good social relationships. And the locker room is the microcosm of that. If it works well, personal performance is optimal,” she explains generically. But beyond the balance in the dugout, Mihic points out that the most important thing he has learned as a doctor in these seven years is the importance of optimizing the parameters according to each player and each moment in routine issues such as iron or vitamin D levels.
“I haven’t had to convince the footballers to take care of themselves. They see it among themselves. If you enter a locker room as new and you have legends by your side, you don’t need much more. Athletes at this level are very disciplined, they take care of themselves and have an unusual talent, but how they take care of themselves is what I try to convey to them,” he points out.
Away from Madrid’s media pot, from the rhythm of a footballer who “goes to Istanbul, comes back at seven in the morning, doesn’t sleep and goes to train”, he now dedicates himself to education and giving advice. That’s why he promoted a congress like the one we’re hosting these days. “There is a lot of talk about the competition and the teams, but we see that the players fall like leaves in September in Canada,” he complains.
Apart from the calendar, he details, there are other risk factors for injuries, although they are not modifiable. “There is age, at both extremes, although there are always exceptions like Modric. This guy is going to play 10 more years if he wants. But if you put 16 and 17 year old kids, they don’t have musculoskeletal or mental maturity. Normally, they are not able to withstand the stress on their body. The second is his injury history. So the only thing that can be modified is the load of matches. This has to do with the greed of the viewer. People ask me what the problem is with women’s football, and I answer men’s football. There are so many games, so good and continuous, that there is no room to see everything,” concludes Niko Mihic after leaving the constant whirlwind of Madrid.
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