Former Barcelona striker Bojan Krkic has spoken of the media pressure that dogged the start of his career, and the solitude that characterised the back end of his time.
Now, 32, Bojan retired earlier this year after a 15-year career despite his now relatively young age, but explained that he felt he had had all of the experiences he wanted.
Towards the end, it became more and more lonely, he told The Athletic (Sport).
“Loneliness has been there in all the experiences I’ve had. Especially in the United States and Japan in the last three years, my experiences have been without company. Being alone.”
Bojan broke into the Barcelona side as a 17-year-old with an historic goalscoring record at La Masia, and hit the ground running when Frank Rijkaard gave him his chance.
He would be called into the Spain side for the 2008 Euros, but turned it down. Publicly they said Bojan was ill in order to protect him.
“There was brutal media pressure. The press did not understand that a 17-year-old Catalan boy said no. It had nothing to do with politics. I was a kid who needed time and space to understand what was happening. I was at my limit.”
Scoring 12 goals in his opening campaign, Bojan was in a dressing room with a number of heavyweights, including Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry.
“In a dressing room there is a lot of competition. I was making great and fast progress and that caused jealousy. That year was difficult. I arrived with the season underway, with the players being criticised. Suddenly a kid starts scoring. That didn’t make my teammates or my rivals happy.”
Supremely talented, Bojan is a testament to just how hard elite level football is. His start showed that he had the capability to score goals for Barcelona, but as he has since admitted, not the mentality. Although things are gradually improving, there are numerous cases of footballers who have struggled through mental health, but many more that go unreported.
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