Jota has revealed he felt "empty" inside during his 533-day Celtic injury lay-off. The Portuguese winger finally made his return to action as a second-half substitute in last weekend's 2-0 win over Motherwell.
It was his first top-team appearance for the Hoops in 18 months, since injuring his cruciate ligament at Tannadice back in April 2025, on the day Celtic clinched the Premiership title. It has been a long, hard slog since then as the former Benfica star pushed himself to recover physically, but also mentally.
Hardest part of recovery
He has admitted that was the hardest part, having been used to playing football every day since childhood. "It's just like blurred," he told the club's TV channel. "I don't know if it's just like a psychological and mental response to erase that day.
"The hardest part is that there's a part of yourself that goes away and you never know when it's going to come back. We grew up with this feeling that football is just granted to us every day, and once it goes away, then you just feel empty with no floor.
"Then it's still a long process once you go training, there's a lot of stuff to do, but every day you get one per cent better, and that's enough for you to go home and sleep well."
100th appearance and future goals
The run-out at Fir Park was Jota's 100th Celtic appearance over two spells, with a stint in Saudi Arabia and a loan spell at Rennes sandwiched in between. Now he's back in action and focused on trying to collect trophies again.
He added: "So just after the game, seeing some videos and stuff, I could see it when they were chanting like they were, and it was really nice to see. I just want to be the best version of myself and to maximise my potential, to go on the pitch and to inspire, ultimately just to give a smile to Celtic fans.
"Obviously there's the responsibility of winning titles, but I think there's such a stronger feeling to inspire and to just deliver on the pitch week in, week out, what they know, according to my talent and my capacities, I can do. So helping the team with this and then achieving the titles, I think it's the cherry on the cake, so that's what I want to do."
