‘I felt like my heart was going to explode’ – Ex-Arsenal keeper Wojciech Szczesny explains serious health scare at Juventus

• Polish star forced off in Europa League game
• Had been suffering with chest pains
• Made a full recovery

WHAT HAPPENED? The 33-year-old Poland international was forced from the field midway through a Europa League outing for the Bianconeri against Sporting on April 13. He had been suffering severe chest pains and was seen struggling to hold back tears as he was helped from the pitch.

WHAT THEY SAID: Szczesny has now told SportBild of that frightening experience: “It was scary. I really thought I was going to die. After passing the ball to the defender, I felt like my heart was going to explode. I told Arkadiusz Milik that I was injured when I took a corner kick, but the Sporting players were already taking a corner kick. The chest pains were terrible.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE: Szczesny believes that a mysterious issue which came out of nowhere was “probably back or spine problems”, with no lasting damage suffered as he was able to figure in the second leg of a quarter-final clash with Sporting just seven days later.

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WHAT NEXT? Szczesny also featured for Juve in a semi-final meeting with eventual winners Sevilla and started all but two of Juve’s remaining nine Serie A fixtures following his health scare, and the experienced shot-stopper – who moved to Italy from Arsenal in 2017 - still has two years left to run on his contract in Turin.