Norwich City striker Dieumerci Mbokani has revealed that if it were not for his wife they could have been killed in Tuesday's terrorist attacks at Zaventem Airport in Brussels.
Norwich released a statement shortly after the attacks to confirm that Mbokani, 30, was "unharmed but shaken" after narrowly avoiding the suicide bombings.
In an interview published in Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure on Thursday, the Democratic Republic of Congo international explained how he had arrived at the airport with a view to linking up with his national team in Kinshasa.
He said he had been on the footpath just outside the main building when the bombs went off and that he and his wife "would be dead" if they had entered one minute earlier.
Instead, they had been waiting on the arrival of the girlfriend of his cousin, De Graafschap player Nathan Kabasele.
"It's my wife who saved our lives," he told La Derniere Heure. "I wanted to go in earlier. "But she said 'let's wait for Nathan Kabasele's girlfriend,' who was taking the same flight.
"She told me that she was arriving in a minute or two. We miraculously survived."
The former Anderlecht, Dynamo Kiev and Standard Liege player also described the panic when people heard the explosions that ripped through the airport terminal.
"I lay down, then I ran towards my wife and we fled towards the Sheraton [hotel] and then towards the car parks behind it," Mbokani said.
"I left my seven cases where they were. A taxi driver followed me with three cases. The other four were given to me at home this Wednesday."