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  (Photo: Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett)
  Players gesture for medical help as medical staff attend to Fabrice Muamba after he collapsed on the pitch during their FA Cup quarter-final soccer match against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane in London March 17, 2012. Tottenham Hotspur's FA Cup quarter-final against Bolton Wanderers was abandoned on Saturday after Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba collapsed near the centre circle.

"I asked God to protect me – and he didn't let me down." This was the emotional testimony of professional English soccer player Fabrice Muamba, who has astounded doctors with his "miracle" recovery from cardiac arrest.

The Bolton Wanderers midfielder collapsed during a match against Tottenham in March. His heart stopped beating for 78 minutes, but against all the odds Muamba has made a remarkable recovery and walked out of the London Chest Hospital last week.

Speaking to British publication The Sun about his recovery, the 24-year-old devout Christian said: "What happened to me was really more than a miracle. I am walking proof of the power of prayer. For 78 minutes I was dead and even if I lived was expected to have suffered brain damage.

"But I'm very much alive and sitting here talking now. Someone up there was watching over me. On the morning of the game I prayed with my father and asked God to protect me – and he didn't let me down."

Recounting his first steps from the hospital bed, Muamba said he had felt "wrecked."

"I only managed about five paces from my bed, but felt like I'd just run the London marathon.

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"It was a shock feeling like that because I've trained hard all my adult life and like to think I'm in very good shape."

While running miles was easy just a few months ago, Muamba said he now felt tired after a 20-minute walk round the block.

It is still uncertain if he will ever be able to play professional football again, he said he still loves the game and "once I start ball-juggling I don't want to stop."

It seems that for now, he is happy to leave everything, including his soccer future, in God's hands.

"I know I'm making good progress. It's too early to say whether I'll play professional football again but I have great faith in God and I have hope so who knows?

"If I can come back from the dead then perhaps I can achieve anything."