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Karl
Senior Member
USA
914 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 02 2004 : 7:33:13 PM
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Medical Matters
Helping players take the strain
(FIFA.com) 11 Feb 2004
Bayern Munich playmaker Sebastian Deisler jogs during a training session with the team in Munich 02 February 2004. Deisler has taken a giant stride towards his recovery from depression after being checked out of the Mak-Planck clinic to which he was admitted in November 2003. AFP PHOTO DDP
JOHANNES SIMON GERMANY OUT
Sebastian Kehl's dispirited body language said it all as he trudged off the field at the Ruhr Stadium in Bochum last October. The 23-year-old Dortmund defender, capped 21 times by Germany, had just collected his third red card in 89 Bundesliga appearances after a crude foul on the home side's Zdebel. Kehl would later be banned for five games - this just three months after a six-game suspension imposed for manhandling referee Jürgen Aust in Borussia's League Cup Final with Hamburg, a serious indiscretion for which Kehl rightly received his marching orders.
Off the field, Kehl is a quiet, composed young man, but on the field of play and with the adrenaline coursing through his veins, he quickly reaches boiling point, or as he himself puts it: "The pressure to perform gets to me, I suffer emotional outbursts, I lose control in the heat of battle."
Could it be that the demands of modern football are too much for players to face without professional help? Kehl adamantly refuses to seek psychological counsel: "I'm not lying down on the couch for anyone," he declares.
However, a number of clubs have recognised the warning signals and are actively working to remove the stigma still attached to receiving professional psychiatric help. Bundesliga leaders Werder Bremen installed former player Uwe Harttgen as club psychologist last July. Beginning with the youth categories, the players are offered psychiatric support, especially when faced with new and unknown stress-inducing situations such as moving to a different city or falling behind in the battle for places in the team.
Booting the taboo
Germany's most successful club Bayern Munich are actively considering turning to a psychologist in the future. "It's basically not a bad idea, although we'll have to find the right man," says coach Ottmar Hitzfeld. Bayern keeper Oliver Kahn has publicly mulled over the idea of hiring a so-called mental coach to help him overcome motivational problems, while city rivals 1860 Munich worked with a psychologist during the winter break at their Turkey training camp and seem likely to continue the experiment.
"We've thought about it, but it's difficult finding the right person," comments Borussia Dortmund coach Mathias Sammer. German Football Association (DFB) President Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder for one is convinced that "one or two players would benefit from a psychiatrist's advice as there's more and more pressure on the players."
The issue emerged into the mainstream after the cases of Jan Simak (25, Hanover 96) and Sebastian Deisler (23, Bayern Munich). Simak was the undisputed star of a modest Hanover team, but after a switch to Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 struggled to cope with his new status as just another decent player in a squad full of big names. The Czech international returned to his old stamping ground in Hanover, but soon fell victim to a deep-seated fear that he could never fulfil the high expectations raised by his return. Just five games into the season he fled, and the club has now pronounced the matter closed.
High expectations
Franz Beckenbauer once described Sebastian Deisler as "the greatest talent in German football", but the player never felt at ease with the burden of a nation's expectations. Unwillingly cast in the role of saviour following disastrous campaigns at the 1994 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the gifted midfielder has suffered a string of greater and lesser injuries and has only sporadically demonstrated his undeniable skills. Throw personal problems into the mix, and the result was a nine-week spell in a Munich psychiatric institute suffering from depression. Deisler has recently resumed training, but his future remains uncertain.
George Best, Paul Gascoigne and Tony Adams head a list of famous players to have turned famously to the bottle, while coach Christoph Daum and the legendary Diego Maradona turned to cocaine as a means of coping with the demands placed upon them. Rainer Rühle and Guido Erhard provide at least two documented cases of player suicide in Germany.
Ivan Campo, now with Bolton Wanderers, had suffered panic attacks and sleeplessness for a number of weeks before succumbing to a total nervous breakdown in October 2001 as he prepared to face Athletic Bilbao with his Real Madrid team-mates. On the advice of club doctor Alfonso de Corral and trainer Vicente de Bosque, the 29 year-old spent four weeks receiving psychiatric treatment before returning to peak form with a series of extra training sessions. Campo himself spoke of a "minor crisis" at the time. Some 18 months later another Real player, Oscar Miñambres, suffered a similar fate, complaining he was "overwhelmed" by the personal and professional demands made upon him.
Depressingly unacceptable then
Jupp Posipal, a member of the 1954 German World Cup winning side, suffered from depression towards the end of his career and received professional treatment. However, the subject remained taboo for a long time, as mental illness was simply not accepted as a possibility in an experienced player who had entranced an entire nation with his skill and bravery.
Nowadays, in a world where talented players can become multi-millionaires at a young age thanks to lucrative advances and endorsements, the pressure on the principal actors in the entertainment business of football seems to be increasing. And with crowds reaching 83,000 as for the recent Bundesliga meeting between Dortmund and Schalke at the Westfalen stadium, the burden is bound to tell. Minor misdemeanours such as a night at the disco or an argument with a girlfriend make headline news, and the daily battles to shine in training also take their toll. According to a recent survey, no less than 47 percent of Bundesliga players reported that the psychological burden had increased.
Cologne-based sports psychologist Dr Oliver Kirchhof believes psychological problems at the highest levels of football are inevitable. "Why should the sport be exempt from this phenomenon?" he argues, although Kirchhof calculates that chronic depression in football strikes proportionally less often than in the population as a whole. Nevertheless, he believes every club should make plans to provide professional psychological help over the long haul - and who knows, perhaps Sebastian Kehl might have avoided a sending off or two with the right kind of advice.
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Karl |
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Helping players take the strain
