A piece of shrapnel ended up in the headrest of the seat Mikel Merino was supposed to be sitting in. He was not in it.

“My legs were feeling a bit tight, and the seats in the front reclined. So I sat up there instead, and it may have saved my life,” Merino writes in The Players’ Tribune. The attack hit the Borussia Dortmund team bus in April 2017 on the way to a Champions League quarter-final against Monaco.

He was 20 years old. Three pipe bombs detonated beside the bus.

“There was a deafening noise, and then I remember the bus nearly tipping over. I looked behind me and saw blood on the floor. Smoke, screams.”

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He did not know what had happened to his usual seat until the next morning.

“The next day, someone told me that a huge piece of shrapnel was lodged in the headrest of the seat next to Marc. My usual seat.”

The Marc in question is Marc Bartra, the Spanish defender who was taken to hospital with a badly cut wrist, the only player seriously injured that night.

“I think I have an angel on my shoulder. I’m actually fortunate to be alive at all.”

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‘I will be at the World Cup, no matter what’

Nine years on, Merino is a Premier League champion. Arsenal ended a 22-year wait for the title in May, and the club rewarded manager Mikel Arteta with a new contract through 2030 earlier this month.

In the same essay, Merino points to a players-only meeting after Arsenal’s collapse at Wolverhampton as the turning point. “In my view, that was the day we won the title,” he says.

He also played through what should have been a career setback. A stress fracture in his right foot threatened to rule him out of the World Cup, and doctors told him recovery could stretch to six months.

“I will be at the World Cup, no matter what.”

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Merino returned against Crystal Palace, flew to North America and scored decisive goals for Spain against Portugal and Belgium. Spain beat Argentina 1-0 at MetLife Stadium on July 19, a Ferran Torres extra-time goal delivering the country’s second World Cup.

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