Erik Lamela felt his blood run cold. In December 2016 a call came and it was one of those that everyone dreads. The Tottenham winger’s younger brother, Axel, had banged his head in a swimming pool in their native Argentina and the damage would be grave. Axel was paralysed.

“For a few months, he couldn’t move anything,” Lamela says. “Right now, he is getting some movement back and working day by day to return to a normal life. The doctors say that he may be able to walk again but it all depends on how the rehab goes. It’s going to be a slow process and we just need a lot of patience. He is wheelchair-bound.

“Axel’s 21 and what can I say? I’m very close to him and, right now, I’m trying to push him to rise up above this hard experience. It’s one of those things that makes you realise what is important in life. It makes you realise, for example, that health is a lot more important than football.”

At the time of the accident Lamela was out with a hip problem. His previous game had been at Liverpool in the EFL Cup on 25 October. The injury was described as relatively minor but it was beginning to feel troublesome. As has been well documented, it would require operations in April and May of last year and keep him on the sidelines for 13 months.

All Lamela could think about was Axel and he was gripped by a familiar pang. Home felt a long way away. It is something with which he has learned to cope, since his move from River Plate to Roma as a 19-year-old in 2011. Initially, it was tough; then it became bearable and it would morph into a way of life. Lamela knew that he had to be with Axel and so did the Tottenham manager, Mauricio Pochettino. Lamela would return to Buenos Aires for about a week.

“I have my career in football and injuries are a part of that but what we are talking about with Axel is completely different and it could have been much worse,” Lamela says. “I thank God that he was able to survive this accident and is now able to go through a recovery process.

“Hearing the story scared me. I was a long way away and it was really difficult. Thank God he survived it and Mauricio, who is a great man, let me travel to Argentina to be with him. Actually, it was more than that. He was the one who made me get that ticket to go to Argentina so that I could be by his side.”

Érik Lamela, in action here against AFC Wimbledon this month, says: ‘I had the doctors telling me I’d get back to my level but your head doesn’t let you relax.’ Photograph: Reuters

When Lamela returned to London, he was shaken by the death of his dog, Simba – it was akin to a family bereavement, as any dog owner would attest – and, all the while, the hip problems were not getting any better.

Lamela went to Rome last January for a change of scene and to visit his trusted physiotherapist from his Serie A days.

“He’d said that we could treat it without an operation,” Lamela says. The hope proved ill-founded. Lamela trained but he continued to feel pain. “That’s when I took the decision to have the surgery,” he says. From a seemingly innocuous injury, the 25-year-old ended up losing a chunk of his career and not for the first time. He missed the second half of his debut season at Tottenham in 2013-14 because of a back problem.

“It hit me hard,” Lamela says. “There were really sad days for me, particularly being here in London. OK, I’m with my close family but I’m here to play football. I can’t lie. If it weren’t for that, I would be back in Argentina. You’re so far from the rest of your family, your friends, the things you hold dear. You are in that place just to play football, so it’s an ugly situation. You want to play but you are unable to do so.

“I am someone who can’t be without football – I have to play so it was incredibly hard. I had the doctors telling me the whole time that I’d get better, I’d get back to my level, but your head doesn’t let you relax. There were always doubts running around. I worried that I might never be OK again.”

There were really sad days, particularly being in London. OK, I’m with my close family but I’m here to play football

Lamela faced an additional issue, which comes with the territory of being a high-profile footballer and makes him smile broadly – the wild rumours on social media. “I will answer this question because it makes me laugh,” he says. “These things always get back to you eventually and I heard thousands of complete inventions while I was injured – that I’d tested positive for drugs; that I wanted to leave Tottenham. They were things that people had invented.

“It’s normal as a footballer that you’re going to hear these sorts of rumours but the most important thing is that you keep your head focused on what is important – your family. I’m a calm person and I was able to do that. When you focus on the important things and keep your head, that’s when good things will come to you.”

For Lamela, the good things have come, even if he is a major doubt for Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Newport with a bruised glute. He and his girlfriend, Sofia, celebrated the arrival of their first child, Tobias, on 25 November and three days later Lamela made his comeback in the 2-1 Premier League defeat at Leicester. On as a late substitute, he set up a goal for Harry Kane within two minutes. He describes the assist as a “beautiful moment”.

Lamela has done a lot of growing up over the past year or so and he has new-found perspective – largely because of Axel’s accident and Tobias’s birth. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt such happiness as I’ve done with my son,” Lamela says. “It’s something completely unique and I’m just making the most of it every day. It has changed me.”

What has always shone through with Lamela is his strength of character. The setbacks do not break him; they drive him. He says that he did not see a sports psychologist during his annus horribilis because he never felt the need. “I have a lot of belief in myself and I am also someone who has a lot of faith in God,” Lamela says. “I get a lot of strength from my Catholicism.”

Érik Lamela at a ‘Shape Up With Spurs’ event organised by Tottenham’s Foundation. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Lamela has divided opinion among Spurs fans. The kids love him for his tricks and feints, for the rabona goal against Asteras Tripoli and for the slick hairstyles, although his current crop is unusually sensible. Some of the grown-ups have dismissed him as a fancy dan.

But Lamela has evolved into something else, which is a tribute to his lack of ego and his willingness to take instruction on board. It is not something for which one-time River Plate wonder boys are generally noted. Under Pochettino, he has added defensive steel, with a few cynical edges, and a ferocious work ethic.

“I had to fight so hard to play for River and that gave me a lot of strength to go on,” Lamela says. “I also moved a long way from Argentina for my football. It was difficult to leave at 19 but it made me grow as a person. My mentality is that I play football to win. You have to do everything you can to win. The most important thing is that you leave nothing out there on the pitch.”

Lamela’s contract expires in the summer of 2019 but, after everything he has been through, he does not want to look further than the next game. “I’m happy at Tottenham,” Lamela says. “If not, I would have left. I feel a part of the club, I’m at home here. I am not thinking about how long is left on my contract.”

Erik Lamela was talking at ‘Shape Up With Spurs’, one of the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation’s health and wellbeing programmes designed to help local people who are above a healthy weight get fit.