Spain’s national football team captain Alvaro Morata has confessed to his past suffering from depression.
“Morata experienced depression and panic disorder. He confessed that he suffered from criticism,” the Guardian reported on the 11th (Korea time).
Morata is a Spanish striker. He grew up with Atletico Madrid, Getafe and Real Madrid youth teams. He made his debut for Real Madrid in the 2010-11 season, but it was not easy to compete for the starting lineup. At that time, Gonzalo Higuain and Karim Benzema were holding on to Real Madrid.
Morata, who needed a chance to play, chose to move to Juventus. After wearing the Juventus jersey, he showed good performance by scoring 15 goals and seven assists in 46 games in his first season. In the following year, he made 12 goals and 11 assists in 47 games.
Real Madrid became interested in Morata again and recruited him again ahead of the 2016-17 season. Morata performed well in 43 games, with 20 goals and 6 assists. However, position was only a substitute. Morata wanted more playing time.
Morata chose a new challenge. He spent his career with Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, and Juventus. He was sluggish during his Chelsea years, but he left for Atletico Madrid on loan to find a breakthrough. Since then, he has displayed consistent performance at Juventus.
His recent performance has not been bad. Morata, wearing the Atletico Madrid uniform, made 15 goals and 3 assists in 45 games during the 2022-23 season. Last season, he scored 21 goals and 5 assists, claiming to be a troubleshooter. He also led Spain to victory at Euro 2024, when the season was over, wearing the captain’s armband.
However, his fans’ sentiment was different. Criticism mounted against Morata after he had a perfect chance to play against Dortmund in the second leg of the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals in the 2023-24 season.
At the time, Morata complained, “The easiest way for me is to leave Spain and go abroad. Even my children don’t understand all the criticism I go through here.”
Several teams showed interest in Morata. The most aggressive was Saudi Arabia’s Al-Cassidia. However, Morata said on his SNS account, “I can’t imagine what it would be like to win in Atletico Madrid,” vowing that he would not stop to know how he feels.
Suddenly, he changed his mind. AC Milan suggested a transfer. Morata was also shaken by Milan’s courtship. So Morata left Atletico Madrid to join Milan through the transfer window last summer.
Recently, Morata revealed why he left Spain. He said, “If you go through a really hard time with depression, it doesn’t matter what you’re in, you have to fight another me inside every day and night. The best way for me was to leave Spain. I couldn’t take it anymore.” 메이저놀이터
He went on to say, “It was terrible. I thought I would never be able to play in soccer shoes anymore. However, I was able to get back on my feet thanks to many people including Koke and Simeone. Sometimes life is very different from what I see. I was horrible. At one point, I couldn’t even tie my shoes.”
Morata added, “At first, I thought I would stay at Atletico Madrid. I had a lot of greed. I realized things weren’t going well. I thought things would be different in Italy.”