“Every morning when I get up, I remember football because my ankles make noises from wear and tear. I have osteoarthritis in my ankles as a result of playing football for so long. As I walk it passes me by. It is a worn joint. Something similar happens to my knee. And my hip hurts. To feel less pain, I do Pilates and do a lot of stretching, ”says Juan Herbella. 43 years. Former footballer of, among others, Vélez, Ferro, Godoy Cruz, Argentinos Juniors, Quilmes, Colón and Chicago. While he was playing he received a medical degree, an activity he exercises. He also works as a journalist and writer. His latest book Don’t cut my foot – Footballers’ medical stories of overcoming and pain (Planet) is a gem. Eleven stories of footballers who suffered severe problems. The first is that of Mirko Saric, told through family, friends and colleagues. Saric, a victim of depression, committed suicide in 2000.
“His is the only story that is not about overcoming, that does not comply with the original essence of the book. I wanted to start with that one, so sad, and then I went up ”, says Herbella to Page 12. The other stories-interviews are those of Gustavo Campagnuolo, Fernando Gago, Luciano Galletti, Patricio Toranzo, Jonás Gutiérrez, Sebastián Battaglia, Sergio Batista, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Nery Pumpido and Marcelo Bravo.
On Don’t cut my foot Medical, social and emotional issues surrounding soccer players are also explained. They are often considered successful, but what the author suggests is that not all that glitters is gold. “For me it is a sociological book”, bet Herbella, author of other titles: Football scopes, The last pass and Between cyborgs, smoked and crazy.
Reading this work makes us understand why high competition is not healthy, beyond saying that sport is health. “High performance sport is not synonymous with sport and health. There is a maxim that those of us who are dedicated to sports medicine have clear: and that is that high performance leads to wear and tear that can have its compensation in money, fame or whatever you want to add. We know that the less aggressive the sport is, the less negative consequences it will have ”, he thinks about what he explains so well in his texts. The sociological, on the other hand, is observed in several facets. Among them, that of Fernando Gago, a soccer worker pointed out on social networks for his injuries. “Once you understand all the effort and the seasonings that these situations bring, you realize that only someone who cannot fully understand the situation can dedicate a meme to them,” says Herbella.
The Don’t cut my foot (great title) part of a phrase by Patricio Toranzo, victim of the overturning of the bus in which he was traveling next to the Huracán campus in Venezuela, in 2016. The last phalanges of three toes of his left foot were amputated. “If he wanted to continue playing, he had to wear a special orthosis to fill in the missing foot area. Not to mention the ever-present pain, which you will have to get used to, ”writes Herbella. Toranzo returned to play but neither he nor those who were next to him forget the request to the doctors not to cut off his foot or leg at the most urgent moment.
Herbella, who is conducting a thesis for her doctorate based on athletes’ injuries, regrets that these issues are not discussed openly. At the same time, the amount of reliable studies being carried out on the subject around the world stands out: “When we reach 60 years of age, we will not be as deteriorated as athletes of previous generations. But I have 40-year-old friends who were professional footballers and today they can’t run. Battaglia’s is a case. He can’t play anymore. And if he plays, the next day he won’t be able to move. Many others take anti-inflammatories on the cob ”.
The current Boca coach is another of the protagonists. “I don’t know if his story is hard, because the objective is to highlight that one person, despite all the adversities, managed to be the most winning player in the history of Boca. His story shows how the body is an intelligent machine with which the consequences are paid in the long term. Because the body cannot be constantly compensated. There comes a time when the machine explodes everywhere ”.
Hearing some of the stories from former colleagues, Herbella was moved to tears. Like the case of Luciano Galletti, who received a kidney from his father. But never as much as when speaking with the family of Saric, a promising young man from San Lorenzo who could not overcome his own ghosts or those of a difficult environment that stigmatizes those who are under psychiatric treatment. “Mirko refused to take the medication, just as he refused to have the subject mentioned to anyone close to the club. His condition was a secret. Aware of the football environment and the requirement to report the drugs consumed on the doping sheet, he feared that when he arrived at Primera, word of mouth from the dressing room would stigmatize him. As a promising young woman with the prospect of climbing high, being under psychiatric treatment would be a drag, ”writes Herbella. Saric began to say goodbye to this world in a subtle way. Shortly before committing suicide, he returned to his old club, Sol de plata, to say hello and from the field he hit a ball that he left hanging from the ceiling. “I cried writing Mirko’s story. Because I’m also a friend of his brother. I wrote it at once and when I read it I started to cry. When he went to the club to hit the ceiling with the ball, where was his head? ”Herbella says and wonders.
The other stories are starred by Gustavo Campagnuolo (a skull fracture suffered in training in Mexico), Jonás Guiérrez (testicular cancer) and Ezequiel Lavezzi (elbow dislocation). There are two unmissable memories of the eighties: that of Nery Pumpido, who in a River training session in 1987 hooked the wedding ring of his left ring finger with the crossbar and suffered the dismantling of the phalanx. The other is that of Sergio Batista, who that same year, in an Independiente-Argentinos, collided his head with that of Pedro Monzón and was passed out. The diagnosis was a head injury.
The last text is the one starring Marcelo Bravo, a young promise from Vélez, who left football overnight due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. “I do not happen to close with Bravo, who is the one who does not completely overcome the inconvenience: unlike the others, he does not play again.”
“The athlete gets used to a pain threshold greater than that of any other, because what he wants is to continue doing what he does”, analyzes Herbella. “The footballer is not a victim. The glory of competing means that you do not consider continuing to provide your services as exploitation. It ends up being the opposite: you have to stop the players because they are the ones who don’t want to stop ”.
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