The Abyss of the Retired Athlete: "It's Important to Make Calls While They're Still Being Picked Up"

BarcelonaA recently retired high-profile footballer told his psychologist one of the worries he had after hanging up his boots: he'd spent his life traveling, taking planes, and sleeping in hotels, and now he realized he didn't even know how to buy a plane ticket. Until then, he'd never had to worry about logistics when traveling because his club's employees had always done everything for him. Having to struggle with an action like buying a plane ticket made him feel, in a way, useless. And it worried him.

"Some retired footballers tell you that they only know how to play football. And that's a lie," sports psychologist Jaume Martí explains to ARA. "Professional athletes have several skills developed through sports that companies look for, such as the ability to strive, discipline, and having clear goals," he adds. What to do with your professional life once you retire before you've reached 40 is one of the main concerns for athletes, but there's an even more difficult one: what to do with life in general. "In many cases, depression sets in, they suffer an existential crisis. You confuse your person with your profession due to social recognition, and your profession, in reality, is an anecdote," says the director of Psicosport Barcelona.

Not everything is bleak. Jessica Vall (Barcelona, 1988) asks me for a 15-minute courtesy regarding the time we've agreed to call because she's at the pool, busy with the 13- to 15-year-old swimmers at her campus in Aragón. "It's strange because it will be the first time a new season starts and I won't be there." [announced the withdrawal last winter]"September used to come around and you'd set exciting sporting goals. Now they don't exist," she admits. "But I've tried to set these goals this year on a personal level to feel excited," she concludes. The important thing right now is her pregnancy.

"When I decided to step back, I also decided that I wanted to pass on the things sport had taught me," she says. That's why Vall, who studied human biology during her career in Olympic swimming pools, has created a company, FWA, with which she's organizing her campus. Has she felt the void after retiring? "It hasn't happened to me, but I know it will. For now, I haven't missed competing, especially when it comes to managing the pressure. The negative part of the journey is still too present in my mind," she confesses. But this summer there was a World Cup, and some things have stirred inside her. "Watching it, I thought: 'How nice it would have been to see the water polo medals in person before competing in swimming myself.'"

She remembers going to her friend Ona Carbonell's room during the 2015 World Championships in Kazan to touch the synchronized swimmer's silver and bronze medals as part of a kind of inspirational ritual. It worked. In Russia, days later, Jessica Vall won the bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke. "The thought of the effort it takes to be there among the best quickly comes to mind," she admits, referring again to watching it on television. Her pregnancy has forced her to take a break from swimming, even if it's just for pleasure, but since retiring, she's started learning to play tennis.

Dedicating time to mental health

"I've always been involved in sports; I can't live without sports," says former athlete Carmen Sánchez (Mollet del Vallès, 1990). "But now I'm looking for mental health. Before, when I was a professional, I went to psychologists, but in the office I was looking to improve my athletic performance. Now I'm doing therapy focused on me and in a more relaxed way. Now I'm Carmen, and that's it. Before, I was Carmen, the sprinter," she explains. "The last years of her athletic career weren't easy, and she suffered from depression. "If you don't perform, you don't see any money in a minority sport. Everything became a huge burden for me," she confesses.

This winter, shortly after retiring from athletics, Sánchez tore the meniscus and cruciate ligament in her right knee. She is now in an advanced stage of recovery. "I'm still figuring out what to do for the rest of my working life, but for now I'm enjoying remaining involved in the world of sports. I've looked for a job that suits me and with a schedule that allows me flexibility when it comes to training. I didn't previously decide the schedule," she explains.

Staying at the club of your life

Daniel López Pinedo (Barcelona, 1980), the goalkeeper for the Spanish national water polo team for the last two decades, has a bit more experience with retirement—he did so in the summer of 2022. "I'm more stressed now than when I was an athlete!" he exclaims to begin the conversation with ARA. He's gone from the pool to the office, but he's stayed at the club of his life, Club Natació Atlètic Barceloneta. He works in the labor relations department after completing academic training throughout his career. "I played my last game in the Champions League final eight in Belgrade, and two weeks later I was back working in the office. If you take a sabbatical, you can start to feel self-doubt and lose your routine. The hardest thing for me to adapt to is the weekend. I used to say to my wife, 'What do I spend my time on now?' She's already solved that problem. The pool and the mountains are her allies."

Retire in India

Of the subjects of this report, Jofre Mateu (Alpicat, 1980) has been retired the longest. He played for Barça, Espanyol, and Girona, among other teams. He ended his career in 2016 in the Indian Super League, specifically with Goa. "I didn't notice the void of retirement. It was a long-awaited decision that I had plenty of time to think about. In India, things worked differently; I wasn't as professional anymore, and we didn't play for part of the year," he explains. From there, he began collaborating with local media outlets, a job that has grown to this day, when he can regularly be seen on television and radio commentating and analyzing matches. He didn't notice the emotional void and has found work opportunities, but he realized how "clubs leave retired players helpless." That's why, when he joined the Barça Players' Association, his main concern was to help all of them have a future.

"It's proven that a high-profile athlete disappears from the spotlight in three months," reports psychologist Jaume Martí, one of the leaders of the non-profit association 6TMA, which tries to help athletes when they retire. "They shouldn't wait until the end of their career to think about their future career; they should do it well in advance. Professional athletes have many contacts. But when they retire, they may call these contacts and no longer get the phone. It's important to make calls while they're still answering. Why? To find work!"