The Manchester United defender has opened up about the mental toll of tearing his ACL in February 2025, an injury that kept him off the pitch for roughly 10 months and pushed him to the edge of calling it quits entirely.
The moment it almost ended
In an interview with AFA Estudio, Martinez did not dress it up. “After the first two or three weeks, I didn’t want to play football anymore,” he said. “I said, ‘That’s it, I don’t want to know anything else.'”
Martinez had been dealing with a string of injury setbacks in the seasons prior, including foot problems that repeatedly disrupted his rhythm at Old Trafford. By the time the ACL went in February 2025, the accumulated weight of those stoppages had clearly worn him down psychologically as much as physically.
A World Cup comeback worth the wait
