CNN
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Two months had passed since Virginia Torrecilla’s last chemotherapy session and the Spanish footballer had found hope. She was frail, weighing a few pounds less than when she was first diagnosed with a brain tumor, but in many ways she was stronger.
Then the accident happened. “I remember everything perfectly,” she told CNN Sport.
First came the disorienting thump that struck like a thunderbolt when a white van slammed into the back of her car as she waited in Madrid traffic, then came the pain, tears and grief. Little did she know immediately that her life had changed that day in June last year. That would come later.
As she stared to her right, the sound of the car horn ringing in her ears, her mother, Mari, was bleeding and screaming that she couldn’t feel her legs.
Torrecilla told him to stay calm and phoned his Atlético Madrid teammates, who were 200 yards away. Ana Romero sprinted to the scene and pulled her slightly injured teammate out of the car, while Merel van Dongen stayed with Torrecilla’s mother.
Two firefighters were needed to remove Torrecilla’s mother from the wreckage. In the intensive care unit, her mother kept saying she couldn’t feel her legs. She was paralyzed from the waist down.
“It was something really difficult, something that was very hard to swallow and even today I’m still struggling,” Torrecilla says of his mother never walking again.
More than a year later, the Mallorcan says life is “getting better day by day” and believes the most important thing is that her mother is still alive.
“It’s true that she now has a severe disability, a disability that has affected every member of the family in many ways,” she says.
“Our lives have changed, but we are happy because everything is stable… We try to enjoy things as much as we can, and the most important thing is that we are together.”
It was her family, says the 28-year-old, who helped her through her adversities over the past two years, bringing her back to football when she wanted to give up, convincing her there was a better future.
“I pray that no one has to go through what I went through,” she says. “Honestly, I tell you with all my heart and, it’s not just the disease, but what happened to my mother. If it is not you who is going through a situation, but rather a loved one, it is much more difficult.
Torrecilla was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the spring of 2020.
Although the world was adjusting to a global pandemic, Torrecilla’s life at the time was good. She was living in a big house with friends and keeping fit with them during the lockdown, until a pain in her neck started causing her problems. Headaches followed and soon sleepless nights.
A CT scan later revealed a tumor, which doctors initially thought was benign. A week after a 10-hour operation, she learned that it was stage 1 cancer and that 30 cycles of radiotherapy and 15 cycles of chemotherapy would be required. At 25, Torrecilla had to fight for his life.
She could not have children, the doctors said, nor would she play football professionally again. They said she might lose feeling in her hands and feet.
“I had no idea what I was up against,” the midfielder now concedes. “And I was really scared. I remember my mum’s face when they told us everything we had to go through and my mum was speechless.
“Fortunately, I’m here today to tell my story, safe and sound, and get back on the pitch, which was very important to me,” she added.
Torrecilla’s remarkable story is featured in a UEFA series called ‘Strong Is…’ which has been produced by European football’s governing body to highlight the struggles faced by some female footballers, in the hope that their stories will inspire others to play football.
It’s hard to watch Torrecilla’s documentary without feeling emotional, especially since we see her make her big comeback, during the Supercopa final against FC Barcelona in January 2022.
With Atlético easily beaten, Torrecilla, replacing that day, was ordered to start warming up. When her number appears on the board, she claps her teammates and hugs an opponent before stepping onto the court for the first time in nearly two years.
In a heartbreaking moment that renders the match irrelevant, everyone begins to applaud him, players, coaches and fans, who also chant his name. She receives the captain’s armband and strives to turn the tide, without success, in favor of Atlético.
“I got goosebumps,” she says in the documentary of the match, her first since playing for Spain against England in the SheBelieves Cup in March 2020.
Barcelona won the Supercopa 7-0, but it was Torrecilla who was celebrated, thrown in the air by the Barça players whom she calls “sisters”. His life, his fight, an inspiration for all. Against all odds, and after training harder than ever, she has indeed returned to professional football.
“It was something really beautiful,” she says of the moment.
Torrecilla, once the youngest player to play in the Spanish division’s women’s top flight, hopes her future will include more first-team appearances for Atlético and a return to the national team, for which she has featured 66 time. But these last two years have taught him to also live from day to day, to enjoy the little moments.
“I’ve always said that after my illness, after the last two years, Virginie had become a completely different Virginie. I think about things differently, I act differently, and I’m aware of a lot of other things that I wasn’t before,” she says.
And what would she say to anyone going through cancer treatment?
“There will be times when you fall, there will be times when you don’t want to come out of the dark, but it will always be worth it to reach the end of the journey,” she says. “And that no one should ever regret being brave. If you don’t, you will regret it. So more than anything, keep pushing.
