Mikel Merino talks about the moment that changed his life: “I’m lucky to be alive”

They say that life can change from one day to the next and that a decision can be key in our life; If not, tell them Mikel Merino. The footballer did not know that a decision apparently as simple as changing seats was going to save his life.

“I have that belief that things happen for a reason.” Almost a decade after the bomb attack on the bus Borussia Dortmund In 2017, the Navarrese midfielder told how he experienced the attack in a letter published in ‘The Players’ Tribune’.

What happened that day?

April 11, 2017, shortly after seven in the afternoon. The bus Borussia He was heading to his stadium to play a quarterfinal match of the Champions Leaguebut what the club did not know was that that match would not be played. There were only ten kilometers to go when an explosion was reported near the bus. Three homemade bombs exploded next to the team vehicle, leaving Marc Bartra wounded. The current Betis player suffered significant injuries to his wrist and had to be taken to the hospital. Merino, for his part, did not leave him for a moment, still trying to assimilate what had just happened.

“There was a deafening noise and then I remember the bus almost overturned. I looked back and saw blood on the ground. Smoke, screams.” This is how Mikel Merino relates the moments of panic that were experienced during the attack, although until the next day he was not aware of what could have happened if he had not changed seats: “Someone told me that there was a huge piece of shrapnel stuck in the headrest of the seat next to Marc. My usual place,” he said.

One decision can completely change your life.

“I think I have a guardian angel. In fact, I’m lucky to be alive,” said Merino and it’s no wonder, because such an insignificant decision is what has made him continue here today. The footballer used to sit next to Bartra, but that day his legs felt a bit heavy and he decided to change places, thus taking advantage of the front seats, which reclined.

“That day, the seat was empty. So I sat there, and that may have saved my life.” A change in routine that only happened that day and that could have changed his future.

His life after that tragic event did not stop; Merino continued forward. The former Real player left Dortmund that summer to play in England with Newcastle, before returning to Spain and exploiting his full potential with Real Sociedad, until signing for Arsenal in 2024.

An injury that almost left him without the World Cup

Mikel Merino also recalled the difficult moment he faced after suffering “a stress fracture in his right foot” that almost left him out of the World Cup.

“Last February I had to see the most depressing PowerPoint of my life. I was in an office in the sports city, with an orthopedic boot. The club doctor and the physio chief were going slide by slide. We were fighting for the Premier League. The World Cup was just around the corner.” Merino just wanted to know how long it would be and, when they told him six months, all he could think about was that he wouldn’t make it to the World Cup. He asked him “Are you sure?”, and the doctor did not hesitate: “Mikel, I’m sorry. It’s impossible.”

Upon leaving, he recounted how he drove home in silence and, when he told his wife, he collapsed: “The head had already understood it, but the heart needed me to say it out loud.”

April 11, 2027 will always last in the memory of Mikel Merino and will always be part of his story and his way of acting in life. Possibly that event was what made him think differently during his injury: “When the fog cleared a little I thought: Wait, this must have happened for something.” The doctors considered the World Cup lost and who knows if this way of seeing life allowed Mikel Merino to be with the national team.