Coaches and players come and go on the podium after a series in any sport has upptaktsträff before the start of the season. Hardly anyone has made such a strong impression that fotbollsmålvakten Matt Pyzdrowski when he stepped forward for Varbergs Bois at Monday’s prelude to the face of the club.
Pyzdrowski told me about their own mental illness, and road back to life.
” I love football a lot. But it has also almost killed me, to be honest, ” says the 32-year-old american, who played for several English clubs during the 2010’s.
started when he played in Helsingborg, sweden in 2016, the year when the club tumbled out of the allsvenskan after having lost a qualifying match against Halmstad.
I stood in goal when the club was moved down, ” says Pyzdrowski, and adds:
– I added a big responsibility on my own shoulders, and had a hard time to forgive myself for what happened.
last year, played Matt Pyzdrowski for Varberg in superettan. But he felt all the worse.
” It was a process that went on for a long time, I think.
He said nothing to the peers, or leaders of the club – but in contrast to his Swedish wife.
” She knew about my thoughts, disappointments, and the struggle for my self-image.
” She had told me that I needed help. But I didn’t want to admit it.
around new year. When was Matt Pyzdrowski mentally at the bottom, and was thinking about taking his life.
” It scared the crap out of me. For I did not want to die. I was really not. I just wanted to feel better, ” he says to TT.
He came in contact with a sports psychologist in Malmö, and has been in therapy and rehabilitation since then. Pyzdrowski and his psychologist has been agreed that, in all cases so far, choose away the medication.
In this situation, he also told about the problems for his club, Varbergs Bois.
” They have been very supportive, but was shocked. I think that there were many in the club, especially the players, who became very taken, ” says Matt Pyzdrowski.
during his career.
” I have always had very difficult to distinguish the goalkeeper Matt Pyzdrowski from the man Matt Pyzdrowski. I used to go home and think about matches, and mistakes, and have a very hard time getting over them.
at the same time had Pyzdrowski an image of himself as mentally strong. Now he realizes that it made it more difficult to understand that he needed help.
Matt Pyzdrowski told me about his mental health in superettans upptaktsträff. Photo: Björn Larsson Rosvall/TT
Right now don’t know Matt Pyzdrowski if he will ever play football again.
” Football means nothing right now, to be honest. But my life makes it. I am trying to rediscover it.
“I have come to terms with that it is possible that I will not come back,” he says about his relationship to football.
, the club and his psychologist for all the support. But he wants to influence the sport culture in order for others to avoid similar woes.
– In the locker room, how often we talk about mental health? We are talking about physical strength all the time and work with it. But mentally, we do nothing.
Pyzdrowski has a american training in economics and marketing.
“It gives me a little security,” he says for the future.
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