Real Madrid goalkeeper Keylor Navas says he never wanted to leave the club following the breakdown of his deadline-day transfer to Manchester United.
Navas was minutes away from leaving Madrid on Aug. 31, with David De Gea supposed be moving the other way.
But the transfers broke down at the last moment amid circumstances which still remain very far from clear, with both Madrid president Florentino Perez and his United counterparts blaming each other.
Navas has kept his focus through the turmoil and has yet to concede in five La Liga and Champions League outings for Madrid so far this season -- a new club record.
The Costa Rica international told El Larguero radio show that he had not at all been in control of his situation as the hours ticked by on deadline day.
"Earlier in the day I was not going anywhere," Navas said. "Then I started to see where things were going, and I told my wife that God would decide. I did not want to leave Madrid.
"Obviously I was flattered by interest from United, they are a great club, but I had not yet played three straight games here. Since I signed for Madrid it was a dream to be here, and I did not want to leave.
"Of course [I suffered]. I was at the airport in a private room waiting for them to tell me what I had to do. Every five minutes something different was going to happen, that I should go to the airport, that I should stay. There was nothing clear. I could not relax until things became clear."
Navas, 28, said he had cried when he got to his home in Madrid that night and thought of what he had been put through.
"When everything happens and you go to your bedroom with your wife, then you begin to think of what happens and you break down...," he said. "There I began to draw conclusions. They are moments that I hope never happen again, because they were not good."
After a conversation the next morning with Blancos president Perez and club director general Jose Angel Sanchez, Navas decided to just get straight back to work.
"I had already cried with my wife and needed to do something else," he said. "I spoke with them [Perez and Sanchez] and arrived at Valdebebas [training ground] and put on my gloves and went out onto the pitch to give everything.
"There were some teammates -- I remember I spoke with some. Others were with their international squads and they wrote to me to tell me they wanted me to stay."
Madrid are reportedly to offer Navas a new improved contract, at least in part as compensation for what he was put through, and the €10 million signing from Levante did not deny he was on the lowest wage of the current first team.
"That does not bother me," he said. "If things have to come, they will come in their own time. What I have to do is play well and then things will come."
Navas' agent Ricardo Cabanas, who has been blamed for inaction in some explanations of that day's events, also spoke to El Larguero, saying that he had been caught by surprise when everything started to happen, and money had never been an issue in any negotiations.
"There was a moment in the day when things started to happen," Cabanas said. "About four or five o'clock they called us. We spoke with Madrid and they told us the situation had changed. At that time in the afternoon we realised what might happen, and I came from Valencia.
"We are part of his family and I swear on my three daughters nobody was thinking about money. I was in touch with him and something told us it was not right. I told the club [Madrid] that they were breaking our hearts. I am delighted he stayed."