Cazorla ready for fairytale finish after son's words of inspiration

As Santi Cazorla prepares for the final season of his career in the colours of boyhood club Real Oviedo, the words of his son Enzo still resonate with the 40-year-old.

While the former Arsenal midfielder spent two years on the sidelines with ankle issues which almost claimed his leg, all Enzo wanted was to see his dad play again.

During his 636 days out, 11 operations and gangrene which ate into his Achilles, Cazorla was ready to quit - only for Enzo, now 15, wife Ursula and daughter India, 12, to keep him going.

"In some moments I called my family and said 'I will stop. After a year, I want to be with you,'" he tells BBC Sport. "'I'm alone here, I don't have family, nothing, things are not going well'.

"My son would say 'no daddy, please try again - tomorrow will be better and you will start to feel better. I want to see you again, I love to see you playing for Arsenal and other clubs so please come back and play football again.'

"Finally, I did it. But in that moment it was difficult to say 'yes, I will be back'. These words, they are my support and my power for every day."

They have allowed him to end a career on his terms. One which has gone full circle, having helped Oviedo - the team he left in 2003 without playing a first-team game - return to La Liga for the first time in 24 years after winning the Segunda Division play-offs last season.

It will be a fairytale finish for the lifelong Carbayones fan, having signed his final deal, a one-year contract, three weeks ago.

"This will be my last season, I have to listen to my body and it's already asking me," added Cazorla.

"When I was a kid I always dreamed to play in the club and I'm here now - lucky and able to play with my club in the top division.

"I love to play football, but as with everything you have to know when it is the end. I have a lot of problems, pains every day."

To speak to Cazorla is an uplifting experience. He beams, clearly loving the extra years he has fought hard to gain.

To get here has been a journey. After an innocuous kick while playing for Spain against Chile in 2013, he endured ankle issues but played on for three years.

By then the pain was too much and treatment was needed, but Cazorla did not expect the multiple operations, one leading to infection which destroyed almost 11 centimetres of his Achilles and nearly cost him his leg.

His bone had gone soft. One operation was a reconstruction of his Achilles, surgeons grafting skin from his left arm - featuring a tattoo of his daughter's name - to his right ankle.

Doctors explained he should be content with walking again, let alone playing. Yet, when asked what the conversation was like, Cazorla - who describes his ankle as a "jigsaw puzzle" - recalls his defiance.

"I never believed this kind of thing," he says. "The injury was really hard. I was never honest with the injury, I was thinking I had a small one."

Cazorla kept putting surgery off, until he could do no longer.

"It was the most difficult moment in my career, not only in football but my life," he adds. "I was without my family, my wife and kids but you have to fight - if you have a dream, you have to fight every day.

"My wife, kids, my mum, brother... I had to fight for them. It was a very difficult time for me as a person.

"One day you are at the Emirates to play and a week later you are alone in hospital. It's difficult to control these kind of emotions."

Arsenal, though, did not share Cazorla's confidence of making a comeback.

They had renewed his contract once but he was unable to convince the Gunners to give him a new deal in 2018, eventually returning to Villarreal for three years where he added another 86 appearances to his previous 233.

"I remember when I started to feel better after a year and a half, I came back and asked, 'please give me the chance to do pre-season and after I would like to sign one year more,'" he says, having made 180 appearances, scoring 29 goals, in six years at Arsenal.

"They told me they felt I wouldn't come back to the top level. It's normal when you are out for two years.

"I was very honest with them - give me the chance because I'm ready again. They said no and I have to understand that position."

He still speaks about the Gunners with affection, though, and remains close with Mikel Arteta, his captain at Emirates Stadium. He is also open to a return once he retires.

What comes next will be "something in football" but Cazorla will assess his options.

"If Arsenal call me my door is open to listen to them because I love this club. It was the best decision of my career to go to Arsenal," he adds.

Cazorla's experience has naturally changed his perspective, especially as he enters his final season, determined to savour it.

"I always try to enjoy the small things now," he adds. "When you are old you try to enjoy everything, when you are young you are not ready.

"It's my last year, so for pre-season, normally you suffer a lot but now I try to enjoy it. The travel from the hotel to the stadium, to follow the fans walking around the city, before I never thought about this."

Cazorla and Oviedo's La Liga comeback next month is, coincidentally, at Villarreal. The first home game? Real Madrid.

While he does not take the credit, Cazorla's return was the catalyst. He helped Oviedo reach the Segunda Division play-offs in 2023-24, where they lost to Espanyol, before inspiring an historic promotion, in their centenary year.

His free-kick against Almeria sent them to the play-off final against Mirandes. Cazorla missed the first leg but returned to score a crucial penalty and spark Oviedo's recovery from 2-0 down on aggregate to win 3-2.

Oviedo tumbled to the fourth tier after relegation from La Liga in 2001. They were in Segunda Division B in 2014-15, the same season Cazorla was lifting his second FA Cup with Arsenal.

He was born in Fonciello, a small village 10 minutes outside Oviedo and grew up a fan of Los Azules.

He joined the club aged eight, watched as they were relegated and then, yet to play in the first team, left for Villarreal at 18 with the club under financial pressure.

The Spain international bought shares in 2012 during one of the club's many hours of need and two years ago returned still wanting to help.

Cazorla was willing to play for free but, with league rules prohibiting it, collected the minimum wage allowed, £80,000 a year, with 10% of his shirt sales also going to the academy.

"The important thing now is when you are on the street you can see a lot of kids with Real Oviedo t-shirts," says Cazorla. "The future is the young people in the street. They support Oviedo - not Barcelona or Real, Arsenal or Liverpool. A few years ago it was impossible to see the kids with Oviedo shirts."

When he penned his new contract, the club called him an emblem and a symbol.

Cazorla took the microphone to sing - surprisingly well - the club's unofficial anthem by Melendi, an Oviedo-born musician, at the promotion party in front of thousands of fans.

Yet despite being centre stage, Cazorla, a two time European Championship winner with Spain, is happy to snub the spotlight as he ponders his legacy.

"I don't want to feel like this, I'm one more player. I'm 40-years-old, I only try to help the young players and club to get into the top division. I don't feel like a symbol," says the humble playmaker.

"I know I'm an example for my team-mates and they look at me like I'm a superstar, I don't want them to look at me like this.

"They are young, some have only played in the second division and when I came in, my first day, they look at me like I've played at Arsenal and in the national team. They respect me a lot, but I don't want this position.

"You always feel proud of what you did in your career, but I prefer [to be remembered] as a person than a player. I try to help everybody, it's what I did all my career and it's how I am human."