The legendary Brazilian Ronaldo, considered by many to be one of the best footballers of all time, spoke during the presentation of the documentary El Fenómeno (DAZN) about the mental health of players and how important it is for a player’s career.The question of his psychological unpreparedness on the eve of the World Cup final in 1998 was the focal point of the whole story. The Brazilian revealed that he spent two and a half years in therapy, that is, that he is still a regular at them.”Today I understand myself much better than before thanks to those sessions,” said Ronaldo. “I belong to the generation that was just thrown into the sports arena, we had to do our best without saying anything. Now when I look back, I see that we were exposed to enormous mental stress, and all without any preparation.”##NAJAVA_MECA_6725538##Ronaldo described a kind of chaos in which he and his peers suddenly found themselves…”It was the beginning of the Internet era, information was just starting to travel at crazy speed. We were often lost. At that time, no one cared about the psychological state of our players. Today, everything is much different. Football players are better prepared, they receive appropriate medical care which is needed on a daily basis. Medicine is increasingly studying the problems of professional athletes, the profile of each player, how they react, how they should react and things like that. In my time, unfortunately, there was no such thing. And the stress was huge. We knew only that football can determine our future for the rest of our lives”.Many amazing talents were extinguished for those reasons, reminds Ronaldo…”Yes, many have gone through difficult periods, through terrible times. Going into depression. The problems were very obvious, but the solutions were not available. Now you have whole teams of people engaged in one career”.Si Ronaldo el Fenómeno ha requerido de ayuda mental, imaginate los mortales… Ahora enserio, brutal @marca y @MarioCortegana por visibilizar un tabú que ha acabado con la vida de muchas personas en silencio 👏❤️ pic.twitter.com/HAmLkINU4t— Sergio Rodríguez ✍️ (@sergiorf97) October 15, 2022 During his time at Inter, the two-time Ballon d’Or winner suffered two serious knee injuries that significantly affected his further career. Until that first one happened, and he was only 22 years old, he scored 115 goals in 134 games in his professional career.He then told what a problematic condition he was in and how Zinedine Zidane, then the biggest rival from Juventus, visited him first in the hospital…”I will never forget it. I have a special relationship with Zizou. I respect him so much… We met when I was playing for Inter and he was playing for Juventus. At that moment that relationship of mutual respect started. We hardly knew each other when I first ended up in the hospital. That’s why it was a big surprise for me when he came to visit me. He was the first person, not counting the immediate family, to come. The first thing he said to me? Get well soon, football needs you. We had a short chat, it was nice to spend some time with him at such a difficult time for me”.Ronaldo and Zidane later ended up at Real Madrid. The Frenchman came in 2001 and Ronaldo joined him in 2002. The Royal Club paid 120,000,000 euros for the two back then. They were great friends already.
