Barcelona’s Uruguayan defender, Ronald Araujo, broke his silence and spoke for the first time about the mental health problems that kept him sidelined for several weeks, in an interview published this Wednesday (11) by the Catalan newspaper Mundo Deportivo.
The situation came to a head after Barcelona’s 3-0 defeat to Chelsea at the end of November, in a Champions League match, a game in which Araújo was sent off when the score was still 1-0.
After the criticism received, the 26-year-old player decided to take a break to try to recover, with Barça’s approval.
“At that moment, with the adrenaline, you just give in. You feel sad, but then, when the game is over, everything collapses,” explained Araújo when asked about the moment he decided to stop.
“I already felt like I wasn’t doing well, that’s the truth, but out of habit you try to keep going, and sometimes you need help. I had been dealing with anxiety for a year and a half, which turned into depression, and I was playing like that,” he admitted.
Club understanding and support
The player acknowledged that on that day, November 25th, against Chelsea, he realized that “he needed to talk to professionals and the club” so that they could help him.
“From the first moment, they understood me, and the club gave me everything I needed to recover”, he emphasized.
The player insisted that he hadn’t felt well for some time: “You try to be strong, maybe because of your roots, where you come from, you start to move forward, but I felt like I wasn’t feeling well; not only in terms of sport, but also on a family and personal level.”
“It was at that moment that the penny dropped and I said: ‘something is happening, I need to ask for help’. I’m the type of person who keeps everything to themselves, but you also need to understand that there are professionals who can help you, give you tools to know how to deal with certain situations”, he emphasized.
Now, the defender says he sees “things from a different perspective” and that “the worst” is over. “Today I feel like a completely different person,” he said.
The harm of social networks
Araujo also warned about the damage that social media can cause to football players: “I try to protect myself, but when it affects your family, it’s very difficult (…) I remember one day when I was drinking mate with my wife. I saw her expression change as she looked at her cell phone and tears started to fall. I asked her what she had seen, what had happened. ‘I don’t understand the evil in people, they are wishing for the death of our daughters’, she told me.”
“When things get to this point, you rethink a lot of things, you see how crazy society is, or how crazy people are on social media,” he added.
Two months after deciding to stop playing, Araújo returned to Barcelona’s starting lineup on 3 February in the Copa del Rey match against Albacete.
In that match, Barcelona won 2-1, with a goal from the Uruguayan defender, who celebrated by hugging his coach, German Hansi Flick. “I felt very comfortable. I think I played a good game. I also managed to contribute with the goal, which was very good for me,” he said.
