Chelsea defender David Luiz has revealed that he played the weekend's Champions League final with a hamstring injury.
The Brazil international was brought back into the Blues starting line-up for Saturday's penalty shootout win over Bayern Munich after about a month on the sidelines with the problem but was able to get through the initial 90 minutes and extra-time before scoring from the spot to help the West Londoners to a famous victory.
"I was out for 35 days and came back to training. But two days before the final I had a bad pain again in my hamstring and it meant that maybe I wasn't going to be fit to play in the game.
"On Friday I had to have a fitness test to see if I could play but even in the game, after 20 minutes I could feel it again, feel it bad, and then I ended up playing 120 minutes.
"But I told myself I was not going to let it make me come off. I said, 'I have worked all my life for this. This was the dream I had as a kid, to play in this game'.
"So I told myself I would play with my heart. I did not need to play with my body when my heart was strong.
"And now I have the reward. We won the Champions League.""I was nervous about my leg and played injured," Luiz told the Daily Mirror.
