Celtic winger Jota said he “met some demons” during his long injury absence and does not want to rush his return to full match fitness. The Portuguese winger suffered cruciate ligament damage in April 2025 and has since made his first-team return in the 2-0 win at Motherwell before another substitute appearance in Celtic's 7-1 Scottish Premiership home victory over Hearts on Sunday.
Jota on his time out
Jota said: "I've met some demons and I've had some good talks with them."
Jota said: "We developed a good relationship and we are all on the same table nowadays and we can laugh about everything that happened."
Jota said: "If you don't grow from a situation like this, it's because you didn't learn anything."
Jota said: "I could step away, see different things from other perspectives and value some stuff that maybe I wasn't valuing before."
How the ordeal changed him
Jota said the ordeal has strengthened his character.
Jota said: "I have a clear idea of what I want, what I am. There's no lost time because I grew a lot. It had to be what it had to be and I didn't lose. I actually gained because I'm way stronger nowadays."
Jota said: "My love for football is immense."
Jota said: "Maybe someone else wouldn't want to come back because of the struggle or some guys just don't have that in themselves."
Jota said: "That was my fuel to keep on working every day, to be healthy and fit, even if things weren't going that way."
Return plan and upcoming games
Jota said: "This is my dream. It's my passion. So there's moments where you reflect, there's moments where you're down and you cannot see any light but that doesn't mean that you stop believing. You just need to find another way."
Jota said: "My aim was always to come back fit, whatever time I need to take because I still have a long career in front of me and I'm still young."
Jota said: "So there's no rush, let's do everything correctly and just trust the process."
His game time will be restricted to domestic games in the short term because he is not in Celtic's Europa League squad. Celta Vigo are visiting Glasgow on Thursday at 20:00 BST.