Andy Robertson: Liverpool star reveals mental toll of his battle to make it to the very top of the game

Andy Robertson’s world ended when he was let go by Celtic at 15 years old.

Robertson did not fit the mould Celtic were looking for at the time. The coaches wanted a stronger, more physical first team and they needed their academy to be filled with bigger, bulkier boys. Robertson has a slight frame now, 11 years later, let alone when he was a teenager.

There were tears when he was told of the decision in his end-of-season interview. He was one year away from earning a pro contract. Robertson’s parents took him home and brought him his favourite curry.

“My auntie came up to the house and she said to my mum and dad, ‘He’ll make it as a footballer,’ and that’s something that’s always stayed with me,” the left-back says.

Auntie was right, but it would be no smooth upward trajectory. Robertson was picked up by Queen’s Park, but was about to go to university until he broke into the first team. A year later he was snapped up by Dundee United. Then auntie died, on Christmas Day.

“She was one who always believed I was something special when probably nobody believed it when I was younger,” Robertson says. “That’s something that does bug me a little bit: that she’s not seen me lifting the Champions League, lifting the Premier League.”

Robertson tells this story to his Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp, as part of the Duke of Cambridge’s Heads Up campaign. The pair are sat across from one another outside, separated by a small round table, sharing their vulnerabilities to show why talking helps.

Klopp realises he shares a similar feeling of loss, of not having a key relative see what they always believed come to fruition.

Andy Robertson and Jurgen Klopp were talking as part of the Duke of Cambridge’s Heads Up campaign

“My dad never saw me as a manager,” Klopp recalls. “He died four months before I became a manager. The thing is, my father was a natural coach as well. So if you would’ve asked him, he would’ve said, ‘You have to become a coach.’ He pushed me through my career pretty much with some really harsh criticism but we never spoke about [coaching]. But now my real career he never saw. That’s hard, to be honest, from time to time.

“What makes it especially strange is I’m now 53 and if I sit at a specific angle and look in the mirror I’m scared to death because I look exactly like my father. I never looked like my father, all my life I looked like my mother. All of a sudden I look and think: that’s my dad.”

For Robertson, he does not even consider rejection at 15 or losing his auntie as periods when he struggled most. He went from Dundee United to Hull City for £2.8million and would play three years of football, including two relegations from the Premier League either side of promotion from the Championship, that would catch Klopp’s eye and culminate in a move for £8m that would bring silverware and glory.

“When I started making it, that’s when I started struggling the most,” Robertson says. “When I was at Hull and I was on my own, everybody thought, ‘he’s a Premier League footballer, he’s playing for Hull, he’s getting a good wage’. So then people would stop asking, ‘how are you?’ They’d start asking, ‘can we get tickets?’”

In reality, footballers have the same problems as everybody else, only theirs can play out in a public sphere. Jesse Lingard, for example, kept quiet when his brother and sister, who are 12 and 15, moved in with him last year while his mother sought treatment for depression.

Jesse Lingard had to look after his younger siblings while his mother was being treated for depression.

Under huge personal pressure, the Manchester United midfielder went from scoring for England in the World Cup to losing his place for club and country. It reached the point when he had no choice but to tell his manager and team-mates what he was going through.

“I was the type of guy who liked to bottle things up, keep everything to myself, try to deal with things on my own,” Lingard says. “But when serious things happen, I felt it was the right time to speak out, like last season.

“I was going through some things with my family off the field so it was difficult for me to perform on the field. I’m very family orientated and my mum was going through something last year, she had depression. She went to London to get that sorted out and in the meantime, I had to look after my brother and sister. You just get to the point where you think: I’ve got to say something. I spoke to my family and I felt so much better.”

Robertson, too, has learned that talking about issues, however small, makes a big difference. “I remember speaking to [my partner] Rach about a year ago, something daft but that was obviously playing on my mind, and after a 10 minute conversation I felt everything was better,” he says. “I thought maybe I should do this a bit more often. Mentally it’s been a lot easier because I’ve opened up.”

from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/312KVDk