First came the disorienting bang that struck like a thunderclap as a white van smashed into the back of her car while she waited in Madrid traffic, then came the pain, tears and heartache. Little did she know that her life had changed that day in June last year. That would come later.
As she looked to the right and the sound of the car horn rang in her ears, her mother Mari was bleeding and she screamed, unable to feel her legs.
Torrecilla told her to keep calm and called her Atlético Madrid teammates who happened to be 200 yards away. Ana Romero sprinted to the scene and pulled her slightly injured teammate out of the car while Merel van Dongen stayed with Torrecilla’s mother.
Two firefighters were needed to extricate Torrecilla’s mother from the rubble. In the intensive care unit, her mother continued to say she could not feel her legs. She was paralyzed from the waist down.
“It was something really difficult, something that was very difficult to swallow, and I’m still fighting it to this day,” says Torrecilla, coming to terms with the fact that her mother will never walk again.
Over a year later, the Mallorcan says life “gets better every day” and believes the most important thing is that her mother is still alive.
“It’s true that she now has a severe disability, a disability that affects every member of the family in many ways,” she says.
“Our lives have changed, but we’re happy because everything is stable … We try to appreciate things to the fullest as best we can and the most important thing is that we’re together.”
It’s her family, says the 28-year-old, who has gotten her through her adversities over the past two years, got her back into football when she was about to give up and convinced her there was a brighter future.
“I pray that no one has to experience what I experienced,” she says. “Honestly, I tell you with all my heart and it’s not just the illness, it’s what happened to my mother. If it’s not you going through a situation but a loved one going through it, it’s a lot harder.”
Headaches and sleepless nights
Torrecilla was diagnosed with a brain tumor in spring 2020.
Although the world braced itself for a global pandemic, life was good for Torrecilla at the time. She was living with friends in a big house and was exercising with them during lockdown until a pain in her neck caused problems. Headaches followed and sleepless nights soon followed.
A scan would later show a tumor that doctors initially thought was benign. A week after a 10-hour surgery, she was told it was stage 1 cancer and would require 30 rounds of radiation therapy and 15 rounds of chemotherapy. At 25, Torrecilla had to fight for her life.
She would not be able to have children, doctors said, and she would not play professional soccer again. They said she might lose feeling in her hands and feet.
“I had no idea what to expect,” the midfielder now admits. “And I was really scared. I remember my mother’s face as they told us everything we were going through and my mother was speechless.
“Luckily I’m here today, alive and well telling my story and getting back on the pitch, which was very important to me,” she added.
Strong is…
With Atlético easy to beat, Torrecilla, who came on that day, is scheduled to start warming up. When her number appears on the board, she high-fives her teammates and hugs an opponent before taking the field for the first time in almost two years.
In a tearful moment that makes the game seem irrelevant, everyone starts applauding her, from the players, coaches and fans, who also call her name. She receives the captain’s armband and tries in vain to turn the tide in Atlético’s favor.
“I had goosebumps,” she says in the documentary of that game, her first since representing Spain against England in the SheBelieves Cup in March 2020.
“It was something really beautiful,” she says of the moment.
Torrecilla, once the youngest player to play in the top flight of Spain’s women’s league, hopes her future includes more first-team appearances for Atlético and a return to the national team, for whom she has made 66 appearances. But the last two years have taught her to live everyday life, to enjoy the little moments.
“I’ve always said that after my illness, after these last two years, Virginia has become a completely different Virginia. I think about things differently, I act differently, and I’m aware of a lot of other things that I wasn’t before,” she says.
And what would she say to someone undergoing cancer treatment?
“There will be times when you fall, there will be times when you don’t want to come out of the dark, but reaching the end of the journey will always be worth it,” she says. “And that no one should ever regret being brave. If you don’t, you will regret it. So more than anything, stay tuned.”