Robert Enke – a tragedy for all

German national goalkeeper Robert Enke was buried yesterday, 5 days after he committed suicide. It was a piece of news that shocked a country – and 40 000 attended a memorial service at the Hannover 96 stadium yesterday, with some of the proceedings shown live on TV, and the service being the top story on all the news bulletins yesterday.

Last Tuesday evening, 32-year-old Enke walked in front of a train. The following day, his wife gave a press conference confirming that he was suffering from depression – and had been, on and off, for 6 years – and was desperate that it did not become public. Having lost a 3-year-old daughter with heart failure a few years ago, he was scared that the authorities might take away their 7-month-old adopted daughter, if news of his illness got out, it seems. This medical condition was something that he had managed to hide from his team-mates – and parents – not to mention the general public. In fact, that was perhaps the greatest shock of all, because Enke seemed to be a sports personality who stood out from the rest, as bright, intelligent, and with his feet very firmly on the ground.

The Player
Robert Enke was a superb goalkeeper. Not the tallest keeper in the Bundesliga, but possibly the most agile, the most consistent and, arguably, the most fearless. Germany has a habit of naming its number 1 goalkeeper and sticking with him. (Klinsmann decided 6 months before the 2006 World Cup that Jens Lehmann would be the Number 1 – ahead of Oliver Kahn.) Even with a plethora of good German keepers – Butt, Adler, Neuer, Wiese, Weidenfeller, Schäfer – there was no great controversy when Manager Joachim Löw plumped for Enke to replace Jens Lehmann – and Enke deserved the status of Number 1. Even though he’d been out of action with a virus infection, and Leverkusen’s young René Adler had played brilliantly against Russia to secure German qualification for the World Cup, most people seemed to assume that Enke would still be the Number 1 in South Africa next year. In the annual vote by Bundesliga players, organised by the Kicker magazine, he was voted best goalkeeper in the league in at least 2 of the last 5 years.

Having learned his trade with Carl-Zeiss Jena and played a handful of games in the 2nd Bundesliga, he moved to Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1996, and made his breakthrough in the 1998-99 season where he was absolutely outstanding in a particularly poor team. They finished bottom of the league, but would probably have been relegated by Christmas if it weren’t for him. He then moved to Benfica (trained by Jupp Heynckes), where he played 77 games in 3 years – picking up the language quickly, and emerging as captain. From there he moved to Barcelona in 2002/3, where things didn’t go so well. He only got a handful of games – and so went on loan to Fenerbahce at the start of the next season. In Istanbul, however, he only played 1 game – a disastrous 3-0 defeat, at the end of which his own fans pelted him with missiles and booed him off the pitch. He decided that was enough, and had a few months out of contract before finishing the season in the Spanish 2nd Division with Tenerifa. In July 2004, he returned to Germany, signing up with regional club Hannover 96. Within a couple of years he was their captain, and their most important player – only ever missing games from injuries picked up through his own bravery. After the 2008 European Championships in Austria-Switzerland, he broke into the German national team, and, when fit, was first choice in the qualifying games.

In recent years, he was linked with moves to bigger clubs – and the chance to play in the European competitions – but he turned down moves to 1FC Nürnberg after they won the Cup, and Bayern München, it seems - preferring to stay in the more provincial, modest surroundings of Hannover.

The outpouring of grief – the German national team cancelled a friendly against Chile scheduled for Saturday, because they couldn’t face playing – is unprecedented in Germany. The whole city of Hannover seemed to go into mourning, when the news broke, with candlelight vigils outside the stadium and a silent procession around the city last Wednesday. Never have so many people attended a memorial service in Germany. Parallels have been drawn with the situation after Princess Diana’s death in the UK.

Of Heroes and Humans
From my personal point of view, I am struck by a number of things. Society has changed enormously in recent years, and, in this media-dominant world, footballers are being portrayed as a sort of superhero. Fans are sometimes prone to lose sight of the fact that they are mere humans – complete with their human failings. Sebastian Deisler was another German national player who could not cope psychologically with the pressure. Coincidentally, he was one of Enke’s team-mates in that terrible 1998-99 season at Mönchengladbach. Deisler was thankfully able to quit the game a couple of years ago with an injury. However, when details of his psychological problems emerged, he was absolutely annihilated in the media, which could not understand how such a gifted footballer could not cope and he was more or less accused of letting down his country. A Czech player, Jan Simak, suffered a similar fate playing for, of all teams, Hannover 96 a few years ago – seemingly suffering a nervous breakdown – but has since managed to make a modest return, and last season signed for Vfb Stuttgart.

In an ideal world, the media would return to a situation where TV and the broadsheets set the agenda (and the style), rather than the tabloids. As this is rather utopian, is it asking too much to suggest that players’ agents, which have become an integral part of the football industry in recent years – taking 5-10% of a player’s wages – also have a responsibility for helping the player cope psychologically with his situation? Of even greater importance is the need to coach players psychologically through the years after they stop playing. I once heard an incredible figure that something like one-third of all married professional footballers get divorced within 2 years of ending their careers. Any footballer is “just a normal bloke”, and never more so than when he stops being a footballer.

Anyway, my final thought on the Enke tragedy is that the German football “family” has reacted with great dignity – underlining what is so often forgotten, that there are more important things in life than football. Only time will tell, but the various statements made in recent days suggest that German society will be more aware about depression and accept it in future as an “illness” – and will be a better place as a result. Above all, a Sebastian Deisler might in future be acknowledged for his courage in facing his demons, rather than be vilified. My hope is that it is a lesson that should be learned outside of Germany, too.

Comments

[ceann mor]

Great article