Xavi Simons has admitted he cried at night during his recovery from a ruptured ACL, in moments so bad that “not even my family know”, as the Tottenham playmaker closes in on a return to team training.
The 23-year-old was speaking to students at the Oxford Union on 30 October, and his words came out on Tuesday. On the same day, a photo from Hotspur Way gave Spurs fans their clearest look yet at how far he and Wilson Odobert have come.
It was posted by an old team-mate. Djed Spence, back in north London with England for the international break, shared a picture on his Instagram story of himself with Simons, Odobert and Richarlison.
What did Xavi Simons say at the Oxford Union?
Xavi Simons damaged his ACL in the 1-0 win at Wolves on 25 April. It ended his season with four games still to play, and it cost him the World Cup with the Netherlands.
He watched the rest of Tottenham‘s relegation fight from a hospital bed. “I had to watch the remainder of the season from my hospital bed and let me tell you it was not easy,” he said. “I felt completely out of control, infuriated because I couldn’t contribute and help. I couldn’t do a thing. Luckily the boys did their job.”
He was just as honest about the mental side. “Mental is just as important as physical. I’ve had bad moments at night, not even my family know how bad. I’ve cried, I’ve wanted so bad to contribute to Spurs, to my national team,” Simons said.
His way through it was books as much as the gym. “I read books, I enhanced my knowledge on certain things, I wanted more information, I wanted to stimulate my mind. I wanted calmness in my brain. That was as important as going to the gym every day,” he explained. “You can’t underestimate the importance of good psychological health. If your brain isn’t working, your body isn’t working.”
The World Cup he missed
The timing made it worse. Simons said it had been “so difficult” at the start, because Spurs were struggling and a new coach had come in who trusted him to play his game. Then the World Cup went too.
“This was my second World Cup. This one would have been special for me because I felt like I could really impact it, as opposed to my first when I was just 19,” he said. “Going through this, I’ve realised that maybe things happen for a reason. You must accept that. And now I’m at a point, I can say I’m somewhat grateful that it happened.”
When will Xavi Simons be back?
Sooner than anyone expected in the spring. ACL ruptures usually take around nine months, but Simons is set to move into phase three of his rehab later in November, which means training with the first team again after the international break. We covered that jump in the timeline when Simons was reported to be ahead of schedule last week.
That would put him back in contact training about seven months after the injury, and it opens up the chance of competitive football before the nine-month mark at the end of January.
Asked how he plans to come back at his best, he said: “My knee has to feel good. I need to feel strong. Right now, I’m on track, I’m getting stronger every day. I’m putting in endless hours.”
And he wants every day to end the same way. “For me, I want to come home and only think, ‘I can’t move my legs anymore,’ because I have pushed myself to the limit daily. I want to feel tired. That feeling is when I allow myself to rest.”
What the Djed Spence photo shows
Spence left Spurs for Inter in a £25m deal after the World Cup, and Thomas Tuchel has called him up as one of England’s two left-backs, with Newcastle’s Lewis Hall the other. England’s camp brought him back to Hotspur Way, and he took the chance to catch up with old friends.
There is no protective bandage or brace on either of Simons’ knees in the picture, which is a small but real sign of how far along he is.
Wilson Odobert was in it too. The French winger tore his ACL against Newcastle in February and has not played since, but he is back training on grass. Roberto De Zerbi has been careful not to put a date on his return, saying recently: “I don’t know, because he has not started yet to work with us. I have no idea.”
The fourth man was Richarlison, who was left out of Spurs’ Premier League squad this season and has not featured since the transfer window shut.
Simons’ return can’t come soon enough
Spurs badly need what Simons offers. The 1-0 defeat at Leeds showed how little this attack creates when the game gets tight, and Mathys Tel’s ankle injury has taken another option away.
The Oxford Union talk also explains why his rehab has gone so well. A player who goes home every night unable to move his legs, and who treats his head as carefully as his knee, is the kind who beats the usual timelines. Simons was only just finding his rhythm under the new coach when the injury hit.
Our view: team training after the break, then a careful build-up through December, with the first minutes coming off the bench. Kulusevski’s slow return shows how De Zerbi handles long comebacks, and nobody at Spurs will want to rush a 23-year-old who still has the best years of his career ahead of him. But when he is back, Tottenham get a player they have been missing since April, without spending a penny in January.
