Kalulu opens up on injury rehabilitation and what he missed during three months out

French defender Pierre Kalulu has spoken honestly about how it felt to be out injured for the past three months and what he missed about being with the team. 

Speaking during a long interview with Sport Mediaset (via Milan Press), Kalulu explained that he has waited three months to get back into training with his teammates. He was until recently one of the most important defenders in the team but he has been plagued by injuries.

Kalulu explained that there is a spell of being injured where you just want nothing to do with football.

“I’ve been waiting for at least three months. After the injury there’s the moment where you want to leave everything without even watching football, for at least two weeks, and then there’s just waiting and wanting to start working on so many things again. It’s how I imagined it, a San Siro full in the afternoon. Second rebirth? Let’s say a new awakening. It was long and difficult, especially for the first time. But you have to take the positives from this experience.”

When asked what he missed the most, Kalulu explained that being away from the team and not getting to play in front of a packed crowd was tough, as it is something that you get used to.

“The difficult thing from the human point of view is that you get used to everything, it’s the best thing but also the worst, when you realise that you love it and you need it to simply be yourself. Just warming up, seeing the stadium singing, these are the most beautiful things in our work. When you grow up you get used to it, it becomes your bread and butter, and when it’s gone you realise that that’s what charges you and makes you work.”

As for what Kalulu wants to achieve during the rest of the season with Milan, he suggested that simply winning games is the minimum at Milan and they have to finish second in Serie A.

“When you come back you’re already hungry for victories, right from the matches at Milanello. It sounds like a cliché but it’s true that when you wear this jersey you can’t imagine starting a match without winning, whether it’s the league or the Europa League. Do I believe in second place? For me a very strange question, if we are second I have to say yes. It will be a head-to-head, but there’s the match with Juventus: if you don’t believe now you’ll never believe.”

On how he is feeling physically and whether he is going to score a goal this season for the Rossoneri, Kalulu said: “From zero to one hundred, how do I feel? One hundred, one hundred, incredible. Finding the goal this year? It’s not a promise, it’s already in my plan to score at least one goal before the end of the season. I worked a lot to recover, now I feel good but as we all know today’s truth is not tomorrow’s truth, today I can say that I feel good and ready to give my best. I want to be at the level of expectations.”

He also talked about Theo Hernandez needing to play as a central defender, to which he said: “He is not a central defender, you saw that. I’ve already told him what I had to say, but it’s not my vote that changes.”