Corinthians striker admits fear over back surgery, slams artificial pitches

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Central do Timão

·24 ottobre 2025

Corinthians striker admits fear over back surgery, slams artificial pitches

By Daniel Keppler / Central do Timão Editorial Team

The forward Yuri Alberto gave a long interview to the segment “Abre Aspas” on the ge.globo portal, published this Friday, the 24th. In the chat, the Corinthians forward talked about various topics, including details of his overcoming process after significant injuries suffered by Timão, the feeling upon receiving delicate diagnoses, and the impact of synthetic pitches on athletes' performance.

Asked if he feels pain due to the spine injury, the black-and-white number 9 assured he is fully recovered: “I don't feel pain. I came back well before, thanks to God and the good work of everyone at the club and my own, personally. During my vacation, I also gave up a lot to recover quickly. The bone still needs to fully calcify. I am very secure, very confident.”

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Photo: Rodrigo Coca/Ag. Corinthians

About the day of the injury, Yuri detailed every moment, revealing the scare and the intensity of the pain: “I was very scared at the time. I had just entered the game and went to challenge a ball with Scarpa. He turned his back and jumped, and I just turned. But when he turned and jumped, the tip of his hip hit right in the middle here. I felt a pain. I had already taken a hit like that, but with that hit, my leg went numb. This time, my leg didn't go numb, I just felt a very strong internal pain, it was burning. When I fell, the guys were asking me to get up and I couldn't. Cacá came and lifted me. I kind of tried to move a bit, it hurt and I was hunched over.”

The forward added, recalling that he still tried to continue normally, but couldn't for long. “I came back, and the game ended in two minutes. If the game were to last a little longer, I would have continued. It was madness. And I could have dodged, I could have done anything there. It was a very big danger”, he said.

According to Yuri Alberto, his teammates tried to treat the situation lightly, but he knew it could be something serious: “In the locker room, the guys were joking, thinking it wasn't anything serious, because every game I take a hit and leave with a different pain. But this time, in the locker room, I was feeling it. I said: ‘Hey, doctor, this is strange, I think it's better we do an exam.’ In the locker room, I already got into the ambulance. Then I found out I had fractured the vertebra.”

In the chat, the forward revealed he feared surgery but ended up celebrating a quick return to the field shortly after. “Wow… I hate surgery, I was afraid of having surgery. How long to come back? But we came back well before. Because the normal is two to three months, between eight and 15 weeks. I recovered in the eighth or ninth week”, he recalled.

After overcoming the fracture, Yuri Alberto faced a new physical problem upon discovering an inguinal hernia, explaining that his discipline helped in recovery, although his muscles were weakened for training: “When I came back, the muscles were a bit weak. I came back playing on both synthetic fields, Botafogo and Palmeiras. When we went to play there against Juventude in the cold, the pubic pain was absurd.”

About the experience of playing on synthetic pitches, the Corinthians top scorer expressed discomfort and shared his perception. “Those who play frequently say it doesn't hurt. Those who don't play say it does. But for us, who are used to playing on natural grass, which is our arena, when we play on fields like that, we feel it a lot. We feel it a lot in the ankle, the knee. The lordosis is also quite complicated because it's a very hard pitch, it feels like a floor. I think it's bad”, he stated.

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