Professional football is akin to entrepreneurship in many ways in my opinion. The pressure to excel, to appear strong - it's a similar game to starting-up. It breeds survivorship bias. And the players who play the game go through extreme stress.
It is in this context that Ángel Di María's story that has been recently doing rounds in social media becomes important. It celebrates vulnerability and advocates the need to take care of mental well being when needed. And most importantly it encourages us to be empathetic and understanding to each and every one we come across during our journey, for we never know what they are going through.
The story was published a few days before Argentina's round of 16 knockout game against France in the 2018 world cup. Though they couldn't go through to the quarterfinals, the Argentina team gave a mighty fight and Di María scored a screamer to get Argentina back to the game after going one down. I think it's only fitting that this story needs to be celebrated now, after Argentina won the 2022 world cup, a beautiful final bout against France again. One in which Di Maria set up the first goal and scored the second one.
Link to Di María's story - https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/angel-di-maria-argentina-english.