Chile miners readjusting to life on the surface

The team, made up of rescued Chilean miners, lost 2-3 - but still went home with a trophy. Named after the camp where relatives held a vigil, the team was led by miner Franklin Lobos, 53, a former professional footballer. Their opponents were their rescuers, captained by President Sebastian Pinera, and including the mining and health ministers.

The game fulfilled an invitation made by Mr Pinera when he visited the miners in hospital after their rescue.

However, not everything is so sunny for "Los 33". It has been nearly two weeks since viewers around the globe watched, captivated, as the 33 men trapped in the San Jos mine were pulled from nearly half a mile beneath the Atacama Desert. But while the world has begun to move on, the men are just starting to grapple with the enormity of what happened to them.

Jos Ojeda can barely sleep without the comfort of a miner nearby to confide in when dreams shake him awake. Omar Reygadas, a great-grandfather more used to comforting than being comforted, cries easily. And Edison Pea, the miner who kept himself grounded by running several miles most days, was hospitalised last week for emotional distress.

The men have resisted breaking a pact they made to keep to themselves the most gripping details of their ordeal, in the hopes that together they can secure book or film deals, as well as build their strongest case for legal action against the mine.

But over the past few days, four miners who agreed to speak without payment have offered a glimpse into the intense emotional struggles they faced - and continue to face.

Mr Reygadas, 56, was the 17th miner to be rescued and one of the oldest to have been trapped.

He said he entered his first mine aged seven with his father, also a miner. He does not scare easily - he survived two previous collapses at the San Jos mine and narrowly escaped a third that killed another miner. But in the first days after the August cave-in, he said he cried, turning to face the wall so no-one saw.

"I'm not embarrassed to say I cried, but I cried from helplessness," he said. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared too, but I knew how to keep it inside to avoid sparking fear in others."

Mr Reygadas said he was loading his truck on 5 August when he felt what seemed like an explosion - the pressure from falling rock almost blew out his ears, he said.The next sound he heard was miners shouting. Yonny Barrios, 50, said his ears "felt like they were being sucked from one side to the other".

It would take eight hours before they knew no-one had died. But whatever relief they felt was short-lived. Within hours, the men knew there was no way out - there was a ventilation shaft, but the ladder there was too short - and that all they could do was wait. Two days later, a boulder rolled into the ventilation shaft, sealing it for good. This is where the narrative goes silent.

Like the three other miners interviewed and the others who have spoken, Mr Ojeda - just 24 but a veteran of the mines - refuses to go into detail of what happened in the next two weeks, as men wilted in the heat and shrank, their meagre rations of tuna and crackers only just keeping them alive.

The story picks up again on Day 17, when the rescuers' drill bit pierced the roof of their refuge, starting the clock for their eventual freedom.

After that, the men say, there were many more light moments, despite the uncertainties of an unprecedented rescue plan - one day Mario Seplveda, one of the group's most extroverted figures, donned a makeshift blonde wig and impersonated the millionaire Chilean philanthropist Leonardo Farkas, offering to give the miners jobs. In reality, Mr Farkas gave each of the miners about $10,000.

The men's stories also reveal the emotional confines they imposed on themselves. Any miner who got out of line had to stand in front of the other 32 and ask to be forgiven, Mr Ojeda said.

It was hot, about 30C, and humid. The men tore the seats from their trucks for makeshift mattresses, but there were not enough to go around and some nights, Mr Reygadas said, they simply had to sleep, shirtless in the heat, atop the rocks. Mr Ojeda said he would often wake in the middle of the night and talk to the miner next to him until they could fall asleep again.

Some of the men focused on those waiting for them above. "Inside my heart, I thought of my family," said Carlos Mamani, 24, of Bolivia, the lone immigrant in the group. "I talked to God."

Psychologists treating the men via phone and video links from the surface were so worried they began filtering almost everything family members sent down the relief shaft: cheery letters were all right; notes about troubles at home were not.

After about two weeks, the miners demanded that the censorship stop. But medical officials remained cautious - psychologists selected the films that the men watched, on a cloth hung on a cave wall using a smart-phone-size video projector. Mr Bean and Jackie Chan movies were OK, but nothing about natural disasters or terror.

Mr Reygadas said he grew so close to Franklin Lobos, a miner who had played professional football, that he jokingly called him "his old lady". If one was asleep, the other saved food for his friend when it arrived.One thing the men were ready for was the outside world's lust for their story. They learned that lesson firsthand, from a group of Uruguayans who had survived a 1972 aircraft crash in the Andes, depicted in the 1993 film Alive. The group chatted with the miners via? phone, Mr Reygadas said. He said they advised the miners to "not give away too much," as they felt they had.

Since the rescue, some men have been drinking heavily, according to their psychologist, Dr Alberto Iturra and some of the miners. And several have shown signs of emotional distress.

At a dinner in their honour last Tuesday, Mr Pea broke down when addressing reporters. Mr Seplveda grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and neck and whispered in his ear, but Mr Pea refused to leave the stage.

"Thank you for believing we were alive," Mr Pea said slowly, his voice cracking.

He was hospitalised the next day, but has since been released.