The ghosts of the mind, the shadows of depression, the rejection of the daily internal and external pressure to surpass oneself are unfortunately a common trait of many champions in sport. From Adam Peatu to Michael Phelps to Ian Thorpe, from Mark Cavendish to Gianni Bugno, from Naomi Osaka to the Australian Ashleigh Barty, but also champions like Andres Iniesta or Josip Ilicic and Gianluigi Buffon, and even before Paul Gascoigne, they had to deal with their demons. The latest in chronological order is Daniel Osvaldo, the former Italian-Argentine striker in a video published on his Instagram profile recounts the difficult moment he is going through.
“I have to make some confessions about my life, about some decisions. It’s difficult for me but I think the time has come because I’m quite desperate and I’m not doing well at all – the words of Osvaldo, who in Italy wore the shirts of Fiorentina, Roma, Inter and Juventus and also the national team – I feel the need to say that I have been fighting depression for some time which has led me to some addictions, alcohol and drugs, I feel that life is getting out of hand.”
“What I want to tell and share with you is that I am undergoing psychiatric treatment – he says – taking medicine, I have a specific illness, loss of self-esteem, depression and many times I return to my addictions, I fall into self-destruction and practically live alone closed in home, I don’t go anywhere, I don’t care about getting out of bed, leaving my room, eating. I have fallen into very bad addictions which have only made my depression worse, it hurts me not to want to share things with my family , my children”.
Osvaldo says he no longer recognizes himself and is no longer the person everyone appreciated when he was a footballer: “I’m telling this not to play the victim, not at all, but so that everyone understands the reason for my bad decisions. I’m undergoing psychiatric treatment , but it’s difficult to get out of it, I fall back into addictions, and I distance myself from the people I love, in the past I was a top footballer, I was a completely different person, proud and confident. This is a person I don’t recognise.”
“It costs me a lot to open up, to get out of the reality constructed in my head – he says again through tears – It is very difficult to distinguish what is real and what is not. I can’t get out of it alone, I want to get out of it, I want to go back to being before. Now I don’t know how to get out of this house, I don’t have a stable job, I spent all my money. I have always been a good friend, a good companion, I hoped to be a good father.”
In the video Osvaldo feels he owes an apology to his family but also to his latest ex-partner, the journalist Daniela Ballester: “I ask forgiveness from my friends, my family, my children and Daniela – he concludes – I have to make sure not to fall back in addictions and I hope that now that everyone knows what I’m going through they will help me. I ask to go back to what I was before, and nothing more.”
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2024-03-14 16:03:17
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