Premier League The Brazilian player recorded his time at the English club between 2006 and 2011
Denilson Pereira Neves played five seasons in the Arsenal, at the orders of Arsene Wenger. The French technician was his main supporter when, at the age of 18, he landed in London, a city that should be his home and that became his prison, as he tells FourFourTwo magazine.
“Going home after training was fine, but after a game, playing in front of 60,000 cheering fans … I’d take a shower at the stadium and go home but once there I found myself alone, “recalls Denilson.
That loneliness, despite having a compatriot like Gilberto Silva in the team, made a dent in his mood: “I was connecting to Messenger hoping to speak to someone, to see if anyone had seen my match, but no one was online. “
Time passed and he still couldn’t overcome that feeling of loneliness: “That kind of thing started to affect me, and you think: ‘The game is over, I want to talk to someonebut no one is around. ‘ People only see us as professionals, but they forget that we are also human beings. “
“Some days I was fine and wanted to go for a walk in the afternoon,” Denilson insists. “But then you see the weather, it was depressing and you give up. I thought: ‘My God, is this my life? ‘ You have no one to talk to, no one online to chat with and discuss things other than football. “
A depression that closed him in on himself and didn’t let him befriend him or with his compatriot Gilberto Silva: “I struggled a lot with it, but I didn’t mention it to anyone. I kept it all to myself. I never told Gilberto Silva, For example. He often invited me to his house, but I never felt comfortable. I thought, ‘He has his own life, his wife and children. I don’t want to keep bothering him.’ One Christmas he invited me and I didn’t go. I stayed at home alone because I didn’t want to bother him. “
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