The Parisian commuter who was shoved off a train and racially abused by visiting Chelsea fans last year says he is slowly recovering from the "nervous breakdown" that he suffered after the incident.
Soulemayne Sylla was repeatedly prevented from entering a Paris metro last February by a group of Chelsea supporters -- in the French capital for the Champions League tie with Paris Saint-Germain -- who also taunted him with racial chanting.
Five Chelsea fans have since been given football banning orders as a result of their behaviour and they were also handed lifetime bans by the English champions. A French criminal investigation is still ongoing, but for a trial to take place the accused parties would have to be extradited from England.
Chelsea condemned the incident after footage of it appeared online, and Sylla says it had a profound impact on his life. The sales manager spent six months out of work and only started using the metro again in recent weeks.
Speaking ahead of another Champions League meeting between PSG and Chelsea, the 33-year-old father of three explained why he wanted to take up the Ligue 1 club's invitation to attend next Tuesday's round-of-16 first leg in Paris.
"I'm not really passionate about football but I want to show the English and in particular my aggressors that I'm still there -- still alive and well," Sylla told Le Parisien.
"Even if the wound that was opened that night has still not closed. I'm coming out of a series of work stoppages and I'm taking up the course of my professional life progressively.
"In fact, I was suffering from a nervous breakdown. The psychologist I've been seeing diagnosed it as an acute post-traumatic syndrome. I became irritable, nervous -- sometimes aggressive towards the people close to me. All the opposite of what I am normally."
The French-Mauritian attracted attention worldwide when another commuter filmed the metro altercation on his mobile phone and it was quickly picked up by news outlets.
Having come to terms with the incident itself and then the media interest that followed, he said the "most painful" experience came later with some "unexpected reactions."
"In my town of Goussainville, a big number of people came to congratulate me for my courage and my attitude in the face of these Chelsea supporters," he said. "But others insulted me and made fun of me. I was suspected of wanting to publicise my story to try and get as much compensation as possible.
"People of colour also said to me that a black person should not lower himself to talking about his suffering in the face of racism. That it was necessary to be contemptuous of the aggressors, ignore them. But these people didn't try to understand what I was going through."
When asked if he had received any compensation from Chelsea, Sylla said he had not but insisted he had never sought it after making a complaint to the club and turning down an invitation to attend the return match at Stamford Bridge last year.
"Maybe the fact I refused their invitation to go to the return match didn't please them. In any case, throughout this story, I never received any financial help from anyone. I have to pay out of my own pocket for psychotherapy sessions. As for my lawyer, he works free of charge for me. The president of the Republic, Francois Hollande, promised me last year however that he would take care of his fees."