There was no wiping the broad smile off Chris Ikonomidis’ face when he bounced back into Glory HQ earlier this week.
It has, of course, been a challenging year for the 25-year-old whose ACL injury brought his season to a premature end back in February.
But with his recovery very much on track and two weeks of mandatory quarantine completed, he was in ebullient mood when we caught up for a quick chat.
“It’s good to be back in Perth and back at Glory,” he declared.
“I feel good, I feel fit and I’ve recovered well.
“I’ve met some of the new staff today and caught up with some of the old staff as well, which has been great.”
While naturally keener to look forward than back, the Socceroos forward was quick to acknowledge the support he received along the recovery trail.
“[Injury] is always a challenge that you have to take on,” he said, “and having a good mindset and good people around you always makes things easier.
“Obviously with COVID, it worked a little bit in my favour as I didn’t miss as many games.
“There have been a lot of changes around the club and around the world with COVID, so it’s good to get back into everything and get used to the new way of life.”
In terms of his current fitness situation, meanwhile, Ikonomidis confirmed that things are looking good.
“It’s hard to put an exact time-frame on it at the moment because I haven’t caught up with the physio staff or anything like that just yet,” he said.
“They’ve still to do their assessments of me and so on, but we’ll know a lot more in the coming weeks.
“I’ll be back out on the grass on Friday and it’ll be good to catch up with Andy [Keogh] again.
“We stayed in touch and it’s great to have him back.”
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