Tomáš Vaclík

I was walking quietly around the house. My wife, Martina, slept with our daughter in the room. I crept inside and saw both of my girls. Safe. Alive and healthy. I felt very lucky.

Martina woke up and asked me how the match turned out.

"We won 3-0." Over Real Madrid.

She smiled and fell asleep again. I kissed them both and went to the kitchen to get a beer.

I was terribly exhausted, but I couldn't go to bed right away. I played it over and over in my head. On repeat. And for the first time, with a calm mind. The girls were fine, I had a great match, one of the best in my first year in Seville.

But the feeling of happiness was the strongest. I realized that in a single moment, our world, my wife’s and mine, could have turned upside down. This whole life could have taken a different direction. I couldn't imagine it at all. I didn't even want to.

When I looked at the hole again, at the step, I realized again the height from which our little one fell, and how close it was to everything ending tragically.

On the day of my daughter's birth, I realized that I had become more of a dad than a football player. And this huge dose of luck where nothing serious had happened to Nicky the night before only confirmed my feeling. In other circumstances, winning over Real Madrid with a clean sheet would have been something that would have made me happy long after the match.

It was a few hours after the most emotional match of my life, one that I almost didn't get to, because we didn't know what would happen with the little one in the hospital in the morning. I grabbed a glass of beer in my hand and checked if I could still see the bruises on my fingers from where her teeth were chewing them.