'I'm fortunate to be alive' – Merino relives bus attack

Arsenal and Spain midfielder Mikel Merino reflects on the attack on Dortmund's team bus in 2017, when he was 20 years old. Arsenal midfielder Mikel Merino has said a last-minute change of seats on the team coach may have saved his life while he was at Borussia Dortmund. The Spaniard was 20 years old when Dortmund's bus was hit by explosives on its way to the home leg of their Champions League semi-final against Monaco in 2017. Three bombs that had been filled with metal pins and hidden in a hedge, exploded as the bus passed. A huge piece of shrapnel ended up lodged in the headrest of the seat Merino usually occupied but he had opted to sit elsewhere because his "legs were feeling a bit tight".

"The seats in the front reclined so I sat up there instead, and it may have saved my life," said the Premier League and World Cup winner in an interview with The Players' Tribune., external "I think I have an angel on my shoulder. I'm actually fortunate to be alive at all. "A lot of young people probably would not even believe that it happened, or how bad it was, but it marked us all. There was a deafening noise, and then I remember the bus nearly tipping over." Merino recalls seeing