Daniele de Rossi retired from Boca Juniors for the sake of his daughter, 14, who stayed in Italy and needs her father
THE late career South American adventure of Daniele de Rossi has come to an end.
The veteran Italian midfielder will not carry on with Argentine giants Boca Juniors.
He has announced his retirement after six months in Buenos Aires in which injuries restricted him to just seven official games.
But it is not his physical problems which have brought a swift end to his time with Boca. It is something much more mundane.
De Rossi’s wife and young children came with him across the Atlantic.
But his 14 year old eldest daughter stayed at home.
De Rossi has come to the conclusion that this arrangement simply was not working, that his daughter is at an age when she needs the constant presence of a father and that his place is back in Italy.
CHILDREN COME BEFORE FOOTBALL
This very human side of the life of a professional footballer is all too easy to overlook. Footballers are envied for the money they earn and the glamour of their profession. But the back story can be uncomfortable.
Many European-based South American players will find it very easy to identify with De Rossi.
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If they have children from an earlier relationship, they can often find themselves on the other side of the Atlantic from their offspring – and no amount of money can make up for the guilt that this can cause.
And if absence from family can be a problem, so too can the presence of family. South America is littered with cases of players who were forced to take on adult burdens at an absurdly early age.
If a youngster shows some promise, it is not uncommon for the entire family to give up work and build their lives and all their hopes around his chances of hitting the big time.
For these talented youngsters, football soon stops being play, and rapidly turns into something that they approach almost like a soldier on a mission.
DOING IT FOR CHARITY
Over the holiday period, it is very common for South American players to organise charity matches.
This might seem strange behaviour, given that they rightly complain about the rigours of the football calendar, about how it leaves them exhausted with its excessive number of games.
Why, when handed some time off, would they possibly want to play any more football?
The answer is simple enough. There is, of course, the motivation of doing something for charity. But they are also doing something for themselves.
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After the match they can let their hair down and get into the party spirit. And during the game itself the pressure is off.
They can enjoy it in a way that – as former Tottenham, Portsmouth, Milan and Barcelona man Kevin-Prince Boateng recently confessed – many professionals no longer do.
These charity games can serve as reminders of when they first fell in love with football, when it was a carefree pastime they happened to be good at – before the pressures of the competitive grind, before their talent on the field could complicate their family life, as moving to Argentina has complicated Daniele De Rossi’s.
