Tottenham Hotspur defender Pedro Porro has been working on his recovery from a hamstring injury with specialist fitness coaches back in Spain and is on track for an earlier than expected return as a result.
Having signed a lucrative new contract in north London, the outstanding right-back then tested World Cup glory with Spain in a summer to remember for the 27-year-old.
However, his start to the new Premier League season suffered a significant blow after he came off just 19 minutes into Tottenham’s 3-2 home defeat by Aston Villa before the international break.
While his hamstring issue was expected to keep him out for four to six weeks, it would appear that he could be back slightly earlier than was initially forecast, likely due to a sensible decision on his part.
With Roberto De Zerbi giving all of his players the first week of the international break off, if they were not with their national teams, Football.London reports how Porro took the chance to head back home to his province of Extremadura to ‘work with specialists to ensure he has optimum fitness levels for when he returns while strengthening around his hamstring’.
Heading home, as opposed to staying at Tottenham to work with a medical team that has come in for plenty of criticism over the past couple of seasons, will hopefully prove to be a wise choice for the Spaniard, who will be a big miss the longer he is on the sidelines.
Porro has worked for years with physio David de la Hera, who runs the Badajoz-based Axis Polyclinic and helps a number of international players, and the report adds that the right-back is ‘considered one of the fittest players at Tottenham and in the Spanish set-up’.
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Porro ramping up rehab for early Tottenham return
Last week the duo made their way to SPZ Iron training club, where the CEO Nuno Ferreira is a professor of neuroscience and applies it to sports science, to work on Porro’s recovery.
SPZ documented Porro’s visit and posted on Instagram: “In the making of an elite athlete, there is never a single person behind. There’s a team. At SPZ we have been collaborating with Axis Polyclinic for more than 10 years, sharing work, knowledge and experience with numerous first-level and high-performance athletes.
“And this time we were lucky enough to receive Pedro Porro: world champion, professional footballer, extreme and, above all, a great person. Our colleague David de la Hera contacted our colleague Nuno to coordinate a joint work between different professionals.The goal?
“Evaluate, adjust and optimize different aspects of your preparation, adding perspectives, experience and knowledge to always work in the same direction. Because when multiple professionals share information and work in a coordinated manner, the result goes far beyond a training session. It’s a collaboration. It’s confidence. It’s shared learning. It’s performance.
“At SPZ we will always be at your disposal for our athletes to help them get closer to their goals. Thanks to David de la Hera and the whole team of Axis Polyclinic for counting on us and for allowing us to continue sharing knowledge. I work in a team. Always.”
De la Hera replied: “I don’t get tired of sharing these “special” cases with you my friend Nuno in this it’s not worth he has X injury and we stay in the purely mechanical…. here we have to be finer and there is nothing better than having a suspicion, have someone who understands and shares it and the power to solve it together.
“Time and work will tell if we are right… but at least we squeeze out that part that you love so much and we go beyond. Thank you for being a TEAM to you and to @mivecinojoseq for always giving me a hand with what you also know how to do. We keep going.”
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While Porro is not expected to be fit to face Manchester United when the Premier League resumes on October 10, there is now hope that he could be back for the home clash with Coventry nine days later.
Failing that, it will be the big London derby against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on October 24.
From De Zerbi’s perspective, he just needs one of his best players back as soon as possible to arrest the club’s disastrous start to the season, with the versatile Archie Gray expected to deputise until Porro returns.