Lucas Torreira admits psychological problems at Arsenal “when I don’t play I have a very bad time”

Arsenal midfielder Lucas Torreira has admitted that he wanted to stop playing football altogether, but a psychologist helped him get through some tough times.

The Uruguayan is expected to leave the club this summer, having failed to settle in North London initially.

Torreira had initially hit the ground running, earning numerous plaudits for his performances after joining from Serie A, but that form was short-lived.

He eventually left last summer on a season-long loan to Atletico Madrid, where he returned a La Liga winners medal, although having failed to convince manager Diego Simeone that he was deserving of a regular first-team role, they opted not to make the move permanent. During that spell however, he admits to seeing a psychologist which helped him to deal with certain things, something he believes is ‘very important’ especially for those who do not have their family around them.

“A year ago I had been working with a psychologist in Spain because when in the second year at Arsenal I played very little,” Torreira told the Metro.

“It was hard for me to really assimilate it because my life depends on football and when I don’t play I have a very bad time, I am in a very bad mood and many things happen. That’s why I started with him and he was giving me a hand with that topic.

“Out there many years ago they told you ‘but how are you going to go to a psychologist, are you crazy?’ And today it is very important, especially for us who live a lot of situations being away from the family.”

Earlier in the year he was believed to be keen on a return to South America to play for Boca Juniors, a move that was dreamt up whilst mourning his recently deceased mother, with the intention of being closer to his family at such a tough time, and he has opened up on his thinking around the time.

“And when my mother’s thing happened, I wanted to stop playing soccer, I wanted to stay in Fray Bentos with my family,” he added. “I had very little desire to go back to Spain because I had to stay alone there.

“Luckily one of my brothers left with me, but I wanted to be here, with my father, because he was the one who was suffering the most and the one who was hurt the most by this whole situation.

“He was always with my mother, they went everywhere together and today seeing him alone is a very hard blow that we find difficult to assimilate and we try to be with him, to help him, accompany him and also hold him so that he does not fall because now we have to continue, for us, for him and because the most important reason to continue living is always going to be our mother.”

Should more footballers consider seeing psychologists to deal with loneliness, being dropped and other aspects of life?

Patrick

Tags Lucas Torreira

18 Comments

  1. I am a Kwalified sigh-colo-jist and this my advice for Lucas Torreira.
    I encourage Lucas to get an 8-5 job in a factory five days a week and be paid 360 Euro.
    Then I suggest Mr Torreira should train after work twice a week in the rain with just two weak flood lights and have a cold shower afterwards.
    He should receive one pie and one pint of beer per game.
    I believe 6 weeks of this therapy will work wonders and Mr Torreira will re-embrace his professional job which pays 70k p/w and live happily ever after.

    1. Mental health is not absolute. You seem to be saying that anyone above a certain material standard of living is exempt from mental health issues. Everybody knows that money, beyond its funding of the essentials, doesn’t make you happy; and it certainly doesn’t reanimate dead mothers. Yet that doesn’t seem to stop idiots projecting their own unhappiness onto others. Think more, type less.

      1. Sean M Well said, and boy does it need saying too, when you have immature posts like fairfan who knows little about life and about how people suffer!

        Money is not a factor at all in suffering mental health and in fact often having lots of money make things worse, as you then have fools like fairfan thinking that being wealthy makes you immune to mental suffering.

        In life there are people who think PROPERLYand who choose to learn from their experience , (even if it is only experience gained through the woes of others close to them) and who empathise and others who are ignorant and do not.

    2. You should take heed of the wise advice offered by those who responded to your pathetic attempt at humour.

  2. Had these come from a club-hopping, crack-inhaling, flashy and flamboyant player, I’d have laughed it off. What Torreira, a player never caught in any controversy in his public life, said is 100% true.

    1. You should probably read Bendtner’s book and you might change your opinion about flashy….players like the rest of them they are suffering mental health issues and drinking partying are some of the ways they are trying to deal with them and it is not funny.

  3. How he deals with his mental well-being is his business as we are not all the same.
    Sometimes it’s ok to be told to man up but only he knows if he is struggling to deal with the grief of losing a close family member as well as acclimatise to a new environment

    1. Y’all should encourage men to speak up and not man up. Depression is real, and statements like “man up” is one of the psychological pressures men are facing today.

      1. There is a world of difference to being soft and being concerned about well being/ mental health – which is what I was referring to. I would never describe Simone Biles or others suffering from mental health issues as needing to man or woman up. I do know the difference

        1. However, if the expression used is considered archaic then I apologise as it wasn’t meant to imply lack of empathy

  4. Men are 3 to 4 times more likely to kill themselves than women. Suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45. And of course depression is almost exclusively the cause. The main reason for the discrepancy? Men are taught from a young age not to cry or show emotion. They are in adulthood told to “man-up” and teased when they talk about it or confess mental weakness.
    Torreira has therefore been very brave talking about this. Responses like Fairfan’s do no favours to fellow men. Many if not most of us as adults have suffered depression at some time for a multitude of reasons, but have felt we had nowhere to turn because of potential ridicule if we admitted it.
    So not a cool comment, Fairfan.

    1. Guy
      I used man up
      To me it means a completely different thing to what you are describing. It’s more of a get a life or a for heavens sake situation
      I am more than aware of the complexities of poor mental health. I never in my earlier post suggested that LT shouldn’t have sought treatment for how he was feeling. It would go against everything I was brought up to believe

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