Salva Ruiz back enjoying football and competing for first team place

One of several players in the Valencia CF preseason squad to have returned from loan spells in the Segunda División, Salva Ruiz is looking to stay part of coach Marcelino's plans in 2019/20. The VCF Academy product played against both AS Monaco and FC Sion in friendly games in the past week, and set up Rodrigo for a goal against the latter side.

This is not Ruiz' maiden preseason with the first team, however. Aged just 16, in July of 2011 he was called up to travel with the team coached by Unai Emery over the summer. The player himself acknowledges that he approached that experience "very differently to this year."

"I was on cloud nine. I was alongside my idols, who I used to watch on television. I enjoyed myself very much," remembers the Spaniard.

Two loan moves followed, to CD Tenerife and Granada CF, before he was rocked by the biggest setback of his career in the summer of 2016. Diagnosed with bone marrow failure, the player was sidelined for over a year, returning in November of 2017 in a friendly against Alboraya Juvenil.

Back at full fitness, he was loaned out once more in 2018 -this time to RCD Mallorca, with whom he achieved back-to-back promotions to the Segunda División and LaLiga.

"I'm enjoying my football again. The last two years have been incredible at every level," says Ruiz. "My aim was to enjoy myself, see how far I could go and feel like a footballer once more. I was very excited when my return was confirmed; I've had to sweat and struggle to get back here."