Marko Marosi: Shrewsbury Town goalkeeper's long fightback from fractured cheekbone
- Published
Marko Marosi was sidelined for two months and forced to wear a mask after fracturing his cheekbone
Shrewsbury Town keeper Marko Marosi says he still cannot feel half of his face following a horrific injury he sustained playing for his previous club Coventry City two and a half years ago.
The ex-Slovakia Under-21 international, now 29, needed a metal plate fitted after getting injured in an aerial collision against Cardiff in 2020.
Marosi moved on to Shrewsbury in 2021, but he has not forgotten the pain.
"I literally had a hole in my face," he told BBC Radio Shropshire.
"The only thing that's stayed is that I can't feel half of my face.
"It feels like ants running around, even my lip. It's slowly getting back but they said to me it [the feeling] might never come back. It might take years."
Marosi has been a key part of a Shrewsbury side who have surprised a few under manager Steve Cotterill this season.
He has kept 10 clean sheets in 36 league games for a Town side who, with a game in hand, still lie just within reach of the League One play-offs, nine points adrift with eight games left.
Even when Shrewsbury got hammered 6-0 at Charlton on Saturday, Marosi was blameless for the goals - and he remains a big hit with the Town fans.
"I'm really happy now," he said. "I genuinely believe things happen for a reason and that this is the place where I'm meant to be.
"Things happen in football and you have to deal with them. Coming to terms with it is what I've learnt from it."
Marosi suffered his injury in an aerial collision with Cardiff skipper Sean Morrison at St Andrew's
But Marosi told BBC Radio Shropshire's new podcast, The Coracle, that he can still recall what happened that day with just five minutes to go at an empty St Andrew's, Birmingham, playing for then stadium tenants Coventry in the second season of the Covid pandemic.
"I've come out for the ball to punch it away," he said. "One of the players just rammed me with the top of his head straight into my cheek.
"It is what it is, injuries happen. I know the lad didn't try to injury me.
"They were chasing the game. We were 1-0 up, it was the 85th minute, he was just challenging for the ball, we both went for it and I came out worse.
"I just remember falling to the ground and this massive ringing and headache came over me.
"The doc and the physio were looking at each other and I was thinking 'this is serious'. I had a hole in my face.
"The cheekbone was literally collapsed, so I had a crater in my face.
"My eye started closing and, by the end of the night, I couldn't see out of my eye. I was in and out of sleep.
"I remember them telling me 'don't fall asleep', because of concussion.
"They worried about me losing my eyesight because it was so close to my eye, because the bone was crushed, and that's when I started getting worried."
Marosi has kept 10 clean sheets in 36 league games for Shrewsbury this season
The former Wigan Athletic and Doncaster Rovers keeper spent two months out before coming back to play seven further games at the end of that season. But he now says that was too soon, brought on by hopes of earning a Slovakia call-up.
"I should have looked after myself," he said. "I should have known better.
"Maybe I was a bit naive wanting to play because I was doing really well before the injury. All sorts of talks about an international call-up. So I wanted to come back as quickly as possible.
"That was the biggest mistake because I was nowhere near ready.
"I was fooling myself, and ultimately I let my team down at times. My ego was telling me I was ready to play.
"I knew after that first game. I didn't feel right the whole game, standing in the goal.
"You say to yourself before the game, I'm not afraid but it's just in the back of your head.
"Sometimes you just can't control it, your body won't let you go for the ball.
"It was sort of like a block, maybe that was a sign that I wasn't ready, my body talking to me in that way."
But, with still a year left on his Coventry contract, he moved on to Shrewsbury that summer for an undisclosed fee.
He is now just nine games short of 100 appearances for the club - and the only way he reach the milestone this season is if Shrewsbury are to bounce back from Saturday's Valley humiliation and sneak into the play-offs.
Marko Marosi was talking to BBC Radio Shropshire's Nick Southall