‘I feel useless, yesterday was awful, I did absolutely nothing’ – Steve Mandanda opens up on retirement struggles in tell-all book | OneFootball

Former France international goalkeeper Steve Mandanda (41) will publish on Wednesday Les Jours d’Après (which could be translated as The days after), a tell-all book on his retirement from the game. Mandanda hang up his gloves and boots for good last September following the expiry of his contract with Stade Rennais.

The former Crystal Palace and Marseille reveals in raw details how he struggled to get to grips with his new reality as retired football player. L’Equipe has published some of the book’s excerpts in which Mandanda tells how he lost his zest for life after a professional career that spanned 25 years. “There’s nothing in my life that I like“, Mandanda writes. “I believe I am unhappy or, at least, lost.“

The 2018 World Cup winner with France goes in details on the psychological toll it takes to be unemployed and, in his own words, to feel “useless“. Mandanda adds how he lost track of time by doing “absolutely nothing” during “empty and endless days.”

Mandanda tells how he got better by imposing himself a different rythm in life. “The weeks are very similar. Yes, but at least I’m filling them little by little. I extricate myself as much as possible from the loneliness, the rumination, the emptiness, and the pointlessness.” 

The goalkeeper also said he exchanged with several former France internationals such as Guillaume Hoarau and Patrice Evra on how they got over their post-retirement depression.

GFFN | Bastien Cheval