Mato Jajalo described feelings of joy and relief after coming through Saturday's friendly against ND Bilje unscathed – his first game time since recovering from back-to-back ligament injuries.
"I was good to get back out and I'm delighted that I held up so well after such a long time out,” began the midfielder, who played the first 45 minutes of the match having spent virtually all of last season on the sidelines.
“Everyone starts over from scratch in pre-season and I'm happy that Nacho [Pussetto] and I have recovered from two very long injuries. It's not easy to slot back into the team mid-season; starting again in the summer is much better for us.”
The Bosnia midfielder was asked about Udinese's formation, with Luca Gotti adopting different systems in each half.
“The new formation wasn't important today. We've spent the last week working hard at the training ground and this was a good workout to get used to playing on the pitch again and work the lungs a bit. We haven't really looked at tactics yet so there's no much point talking about formations at this stage.”