Footballers that suffered from depression

MyOnlySolskjaer

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Often feels that for footballers it requires an elite mentality to be at the top and stay at the top, one that very few can cope with. I'm curious about those who have managed this but still suffered from depression or mental health issues.

One of the examples I can think of is Iniesta.

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After his friend's death,

“I got to the point, especially at the start, I was waiting for the nights to come because I took medication and I could rest."
“It was that bad, I just wanted to rest."
“I had a very bad time. People close to me know it, I had very bad situations. Until you suffer it, you don’t know what it’s like."
“I had a hard time but I never stopped training and took it one day at a time."
“My wife, my girlfriend at the time, never left my side. She would spend nights with me at my parent’s house."
 
Aaron Lennon went through a very bad time recently. Always thought he has shown such resilience and strength to be back playing. Have to admire it.
 
Robert Enke comes to mind, he committed suicide because of depression. Anyone read his biography? From what I've heard it's a great book.

Sebastian Deisler also suffered from it.
 
Clarke Carlisle has been publicly raising the subject for a good few years.
 
I never knew Iniesta suffered from depression.

Not a player, but Prandelli stepping away from managing Fiorentina due to depression was a sad moment.
 
Danny Rose was another. Really declined as a player after that. Never got back to anything like his previous form after his return.
 
Gregory van der Wiel last year gave a very open interview about having serious mental struggles for parts of his carreer.
 
Andy Cole suffered depression after his kidney issues but that is post playing days. To be honest the abuse he received around 95-97 when playing was ludicrous and he did well to get through it.
 
Jordan Ibe.
He has spoken about it in interviews. Really felt sad for the lad.
 
Hastar said:
Jordan Ibe.
He has spoken about it in interviews. Really felt sad for the lad.
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Definitely on this one.
He was with my lot at Wycombe at 15, and when he slalomed through a few defenders and scored a goal, then ran to celebrate with his dad, it was a truly beautiful moment.

To see how it's panned out since is really sad.
 
I'm not qualified enough to term it depression, but I remember Darren Fletcher being very open about how his mental health had taken a real hit because of ulcerative colitis keeping him away from football.

Adriano suffered from depression after losing his father, and took to alcohol very seriously if I remember correctly.

Danny Rose too had a battle against depression after losing some key people in life.

As I write this, I wonder if maybe footballers have a very hard time dealing with loss because they likely spend so much time away from the people they lose. Like the suddenness is easy for no one to deal with, but maybe it becomes far more for them.
 
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Ixion said:
Andy Cole suffered depression after his kidney issues but that is post playing days. To be honest the abuse he received around 95-97 when playing was ludicrous and he did well to get through it.
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You're right it was terrible.

Excellent player struggling with confidence mostly due to the relentless piss-taking he is receiving? I know the solution! Let's give him more.
 
Hastar said:
Jordan Ibe.
He has spoken about it in interviews. Really felt sad for the lad.
Click to expand...
Sandikan said:
Definitely on this one.
He was with my lot at Wycombe at 15, and when he slalomed through a few defenders and scored a goal, then ran to celebrate with his dad, it was a truly beautiful moment.

To see how it's panned out since is really sad.
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This is who came to mind for me as well.

I remember first seeing him play when he came on for Liverpool in the merseyside derby. First time he got the ball he went on a darting run up the right wing, shot from range and must've nearly cracked the far post. I thought fecking hell Liverpool really have a player here.

I see he's out in Adana now. Hopefully its an environment that suits him. I know from experience that when personal issues / mental health problems knock on your door something that previously seemed like it meant everything like your career quickly becomes meaningless and suddenly its just about survival.
 
Vidyoyo said:
Stan Collymore is a notable one. It was one of the first big public reveals in football IIRC.

About 20% of the UK population suffer from depression so I'd wager far more footballers have than we hear about.
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Very good post. It’s widespread, and then add in that you’re dealing with young men from working class backgrounds, under huge pressure, who are targeted with wreckless abandon by a famously callous media and it’s fairly obvious that depression among players is gonna be very high.

Add in the elements of continuous racial abuse / hatred on social media and it’s gotta be pretty intense for them. Raheem Sterling for example must surely have suffered with serious depression with what he’s had done to him.

I’d add to it that I’d wager that pretty much all the bad behaved players, domestic abuse players etc are / were likely very depressed people - Gazza, George Best, Maradona obviously all suffered with serious depression.

I’d imagine the young lad at Utd who seems to’ve thrown his career away suffers from depression and is an unhappy person - BEFORE this I mean. Happy, well adjusted young people don’t have relationships like that.

I think recognising depression in players is crucial moving forward, and also dealing with the fact that for guys like Gazza, Ravel Morrison, now Greenwood there very likely could’ve been a better path for them (and those around them) if they were in a culture where their clear mental problems were addressed and they were educated and given proper help.

All three of those guys for example should fairly obviously have been on medication rather than being put in front of 70,000 people every week and social media as well.

I hope that moving forward clubs can take this kind of thing seriously, and ADMIT to themselves when a young player clearly has mental issues / problems, and also understanding that many young lads WON’T KNOW this themselves.
 
GDaly95 said:
This is who came to mind for me as well.

I remember first seeing him play when he came on for Liverpool in the merseyside derby. First time he got the ball he went on a darting run up the right wing, shot from range and must've nearly cracked the far post. I thought fecking hell Liverpool really have a player here.

I see he's out in Adana now. Hopefully its an environment that suits him. I know from experience that when personal issues / mental health problems knock on your door something that previously seemed like it meant everything like your career quickly becomes meaningless and suddenly its just about survival.
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It’s a bit surprising he’s in the second division in Turkey. Out of the limelight is probably the best for him though.

He was seen as the replacement for Sterling at Liverpool at one point
 
Rhyme Animal said:
I’d imagine the young lad at Utd who seems to’ve thrown his career away suffers from depression and is an unhappy person - BEFORE this I mean. Happy, well adjusted young people don’t have relationships like that.
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Please don't include him in this discussion. We just don't know what was going on in his head, I think it is better we stick to known cases here, otherwise this thread might evolve into a disaster.
 
stefan92 said:
Please don't include him in this discussion. We just don't know what was going on in his head, I think it is better we stick to known cases here, otherwise this thread might evolve into a disaster.
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Fairly obvious he has significant mental health issues!

Players like this should be at the forefront of such discussions, there’s plenty of others in my post to focus on if you prefer anyway.
 
Let's not forget about our Luke Chadwick as well. It's terrible what he had to endure at such a young age

Paul Gascoigne probably fit into this thread too.
 
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Neil Lennon is another high profile one. He was struggling to get out of bed before a CL qualifier away against Basle in 2002, played the game eventually with no memory of it.

Not too mention the death threats, attacks on him etc that he has had to endure.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
Very good post. It’s widespread, and then add in that you’re dealing with young men from working class backgrounds, under huge pressure, who are targeted with wreckless abandon by a famously callous media and it’s fairly obvious that depression among players is gonna be very high.

Add in the elements of continuous racial abuse / hatred on social media and it’s gotta be pretty intense for them. Raheem Sterling for example must surely have suffered with serious depression with what he’s had done to him.

I’d add to it that I’d wager that pretty much all the bad behaved players, domestic abuse players etc are / were likely very depressed people - Gazza, George Best, Maradona obviously all suffered with serious depression.

I’d imagine the young lad at Utd who seems to’ve thrown his career away suffers from depression and is an unhappy person - BEFORE this I mean. Happy, well adjusted young people don’t have relationships like that.

I think recognising depression in players is crucial moving forward, and also dealing with the fact that for guys like Gazza, Ravel Morrison, now Greenwood there very likely could’ve been a better path for them (and those around them) if they were in a culture where their clear mental problems were addressed and they were educated and given proper help.

All three of those guys for example should fairly obviously have been on medication rather than being put in front of 70,000 people every week and social media as well.

I hope that moving forward clubs can take this kind of thing seriously, and ADMIT to themselves when a young player clearly has mental issues / problems, and also understanding that many young lads WON’T KNOW this themselves.
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There are many different mental health issues, it's not just depression even though it often accompanies different diagnoses — those words shouldn't be used interchangeably. Gascoigne was also diagnosed with bipolar, OCD, psychosis etc. And not all who suffer from alcoholism & other addictions came to them through depression.

As for Sterling — it doesn't work this way, it's another misconception (depression can happen to anyone, even those who don't have any "reasons" for having it — and it works the other way too, even people under the most intense scrutiny can deal with it in a healthy way). Depression doesn't have a linear correlation with the amount of hardships that someone had suffered in life even though additional stress obviously rises a chance of triggering it.

I get that this post comes from a good place but some of those preconceptions can actually be harmful to those that suffer from mental illnesses. Including the projection of depression on different famous people with very different issues based simply on the fact that their life took a wrong turn.
 
I once read an interview with Gigi Buffon where he openly discussed his battle with depression and anxiety.
oh, and whoever was the 'Secret Footballer' all those years ago dealt with it.

Carlos Tevez also was rumored to have dealt with it, famously flying to Argentina with no permission from City / no wanting to play in a match / something to that effect, I can't recall properly at the moment.

Bosman after whom the law is named also suffered from depression by the end of his career.

I find depression quite astonishing if I'm honest. the places a depressed mind can go to are really, really scary and real. One might try and describe the feeling with words, but the essence of depression can never be passed on by words. Thinking back on the first half of my life when the feeling was unknown to me feels quite surreal.

I have dealt with it on and off since I was 18 (31 now), been hospitalized twice, survived a suicide attempt... I'd like to think i'm in a better place currently (found a job I like for the first time ever), but there's always this fear of spiraling back out of control... I'd say that on average I have probably 4-5 days a week where i'm mostly fine, and another 2-3 where i'm prone to staying inside my flat for huge chunks of the day without eating anything and feeling like a worthless piece of shite,
if I didn't manage to convince myself right from the off that I can beat this, or if nobody happened to invite me to do this or that...

free time is a real bitch when it comes to mental health issues, and footballers have shit-tons of it. and then when you take into account that a lot of them live in countries and cultures they are not used to, and that some don't have their families/friends close by... no wonder it'll come knocking at least for some of them.

I came to realize by now that people who haven't experienced it first hand could never understand how come it affects people who are rich, famous, adored blah blah...

It's almost comical how these things have nothing to do with mental health issues (if anything they sometimes worsen an already existing tendency to suffer from it).
 
harms said:
There are many different mental health issues, it's not just depression even though it often accompanies different diagnoses — those words shouldn't be used interchangeably. Gascoigne was also diagnosed with bipolar, OCD, psychosis etc. And not all who suffer from alcoholism & other addictions came to them through depression.

As for Sterling — it doesn't work this way, it's another misconception (depression can happen to anyone, even those who don't have any "reasons" for having it — and it works the other way too, even people under the most intense scrutiny can deal with it in a healthy way). Depression doesn't have a linear correlation with the amount of hardships that someone had suffered in life even though additional stress obviously rises a chance of triggering it.

I get that this post comes from a good place but some of those preconceptions can actually be harmful to those that suffer from mental illnesses. Including the projection of depression on different famous people with very different issues based simply on the fact that their life took a wrong turn.
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Not to sound offish or combative but bi polar is literally a depression spectrum condition and OCD and depression are not mutually exclusive and often go hand in hand. Paul Gascoigne’s career (and life) was ravaged by depression.

And regarding Raheem Sterling…

https://www.si.com/soccer/mancheste...ental-health-challenges-during-2020-21-season

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...op-the-negative-thoughts-in-my-head-hmztqtwll

While (genuinely) not wanting to sound offish or pompous, my job is linked directly to the effects of depression on people in positions of high stress, sometimes people who are high profile etc, so I’m speaking from experience here, not guess work.
 
Robert Enke comes to mind. Great goalkepper who tragically committed suicide in 2009. There was a book (biography) written about his case, A Life Too Short - I really recommend it.
 
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Dan_F said:
I struggle to find much sympathy for him. Did the depression start before or after he kicked the shit out of his ex-wife.
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I think the thing here is understanding that X person had / has depression doesn’t equate to giving them sympathy for awful behaviour / crimes.

People who are wrecking their own and others lives are very often depressed people and suffering from depression spectrum conditions.

Doesn’t mean that you, or I or anyone needs to sympathise with them.

Not specifying this to Collymore or Greenwood, but understanding why people act in destructive ways that wreck their own lives is crucial in actually starting to reverse it.
 
Our own Michael Carrick had a really tough time after that 2009 CL final loss as I recall.
 
Sparky_Hughes said:
He had all the tools to be amazing if not for his troubles.
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But depression was not his only problem.

I have read many interviews with him - and he just did not enjoy everything that came with the footballing business despite having the talent and liking the sport itself. There is players that enjoy acting in front of so many people and the publicity - that like the pressure they have - that enjoy the group of footballers and the team with all the positives and negatives - Deisler did not.
 
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