{"id":619490,"date":"2026-06-03T20:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T20:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619490\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T20:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T20:16:09","slug":"there-are-low-points-ibrahima-konate-reveals-struggles-in-year-of-personal-tragedy-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/619490\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018There are low points\u2019: Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 reveals struggles in year of personal tragedy | Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 has spoken about the struggles he faced in a year of personal tragedy in which the death of his former Liverpool teammate Diogo Jota<\/a> was followed by that of his father.<\/p>\n

The France<\/a> international\u2019s form was affected but it was not until January, when his dad, Hamady, died after a long illness, that it became apparent the personal turmoil the 27-year-old had been dealing with.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are low points, there\u2019s depression,\u201d said the defender, who appears poised to join Real Madrid after not renewing his Liverpool contract<\/a>. \u201cYou can suffer from depression in football too; there\u2019s no need to be ashamed to say so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true that I\u2019ve often heard players say they were suffering from depression and that fans or people on the outside didn\u2019t understand because they were earning a lot of money. But no, that\u2019s rubbish and you shouldn\u2019t say that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepression is personal; it\u2019s deep inside you. When you\u2019re depressed, it starts in the heart, goes up to the brain and takes over your whole body. For me, that\u2019s what\u2019s hard, and we need to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 in France training before the World Cup. Photograph: Franck Fife\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

On the crash which killed his neighbour Jota and Jota\u2019s brother, Andr\u00e9 Silva, on the eve of pre-season training Konat\u00e9 said: \u201cIt devastated me. I didn\u2019t have any interest in anything else at that point.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go back to football because you have no choice. We\u2019re employees at a club that pays us every month, so we have duties. We had no choice but to go back on the field and play for him and his family \u2013 as well as ourselves. There\u2019s no way of getting over it, but you learn to live with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Konat\u00e9 was also carrying the burden of knowing his father was seriously ill. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to do. I didn\u2019t know whether I should go home and stop playing, because the team needed me too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know who to talk to about it, so I kept it all to myself. And this is the advice I\u2019d give to everyone: when you\u2019re feeling down or something\u2019s going on, you need to talk to those around you. It can help you and do you good. I didn\u2019t talk about it and kept it to myself. The doctors then told us he didn\u2019t have long to live, but we didn\u2019t know it would happen so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

While on compassionate leave Konat\u00e9 called Liverpool\u2019s then head coach, Arne Slot, to say he was returning to help the team in a defensive injury crisis, and he scored on an emotional comeback against Newcastle at Anfield<\/a>. But the centre-back knew things were not right. \u201cThere was never a moment when I felt like I was on the mend,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of these tragic events happened so quickly and as soon as I felt like I was getting my head above water, something else happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had the support of all these fans, who are exceptional at Liverpool<\/a>, my teammates and especially my family but I also had to learn how to get back on my feet on my own because the team needed me more than ever and I know that my father would have wanted me to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@\u200asamaritans.org<\/a>. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 has spoken about the struggles he faced in a year of personal tragedy in which the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-619490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}