In January 2020 Linda Nyman i.e. his dream. He would have liked to continue in the Swedish Kungsbacka team, but when he was unexpectedly offered a contract with the big Italian club Inter, he decided to take it and moved to Milan.
Only half a year later, the snowball started rolling. The snowball grew bigger and bigger on its way from Italy to Spain and from there to Denmark. That’s where it melted away.
In November 2021, Linda Nyman hit rock bottom, as she herself expresses it.
– It felt like I gave myself permission to feel all the feelings I had suppressed for a year and a half.
Congenital heart defect. Disappointment with the Italian Football Federation. Pressure to make up for lost time. Demeaning feedback from the Spanish coach. Embarrassing panic attack. Regret for a failed club choice.
These feelings were followed by shame.
Nymania was ashamed that he couldn’t complete, and ashamed to admit that he had taken too much of a bite.
– When everything goes well, it’s easy to say that you know you’re much more than a football player. But when everything collapses, it becomes really concrete that you have to find other reasons why it’s okay, Nyman says in Sportliv.
After going through a personal crisis, Nyman finally noticed last fall that there were more good days than bad.
Watch Sportliv’s mini-documentary about Linda Nyman’s nightmarish years and the road back:
About twenty years ago, a classmate coaxed Linda Nyman into her first soccer practice. The youngster from Kokkola received his football education at the local GBK, and after high school moved to FC Honka in Espoo. In 2018, he made his debut in the A national team.
The following year, Nyman played for Kungsbacka in Sweden and despite the fact that the team’s season was difficult, he himself managed to perform at a high level. When the qualifiers for the 2021 EC final tournament began in autumn 2019, Linda Nyman played in Finland’s opening.
When the corona pandemic broke out, the EC qualifiers had reached the halfway point. After that, Linda Nyman was no longer seen in the qualifying matches, nor in the European Championships.
The ultrasound examination led to a nightmare
When Nyman signed the contract with Inter, the normal health checks were carried out. As many times before, everything was as it should be.
During the corona break, the players were sent home and Linda had a good time in Kokkola, where she could train outdoors with local track and field athletes. Physically, he was in top form when the players were called back to Milan in July.
Since some of the players had contracted the corona disease, the club wanted to do more detailed heart examinations to make sure that there would be no danger to the players from the exercises.
An ultrasound scan revealed a congenital defect in Linda’s heart which, according to Italian doctors, would prevent her from playing soccer at the highest level.
Linda remembers the loud conversation of the doctors in Italian around her. He didn’t understand anything himself.
– The situation felt completely absurd. As if it was about someone else. I didn’t expect anything like that. I broke down then and there.
There was no shortcut, you just had to go through all the feelings and thoughts.
Nyman scrolls through his player profile, which reveals that he didn’t play a single league game for Inter.
The time following the diagnosis was tough. Nyman had to undergo several examinations and in the meantime was not allowed to participate in the team’s training. Not even going to the training ground with teammates.
– I was mostly alone and tried to pass the time as well as possible. Fortunately, I had nice teammates who really cared about me.
After a couple of months, he decided to go to Finland to see a domestic cardiologist.
After months of investigations, the congenital heart defect was also confirmed in Finland, while the verdict regarding the continuation of his football career was completely different.
According to the doctor, there was nothing to indicate that he was at a higher risk of heart problems than others. According to European and American protocols, nothing would prevent him from playing at the top level.
In Italy, however, the rules were different. There is zero tolerance when it comes to heart defects.
– We tried to have a conversation with the Italian doctor and I tried to hold on to hope for as long as possible, but then I realized that it wasn’t worth fighting back.
Felt the pressure to get back
After the announcement from Italy, Nyman felt pressure to make up for lost time. Not least because the European Championship, postponed a year, was still the goal.
He had played his last match in March 2020 and so in January 2021 he accepted an offer from the Spanish league, where he was supposed to get a lot of playing time.
However, his time at EDF Logroño did not go as he had thought.
– It was a very difficult time in my career. First of all, maybe I wasn’t mentally in the condition I should have been. It felt like I was trying to catch up with time, which of course I couldn’t do.
In retrospect, Nyman states that in that situation he would have needed a slightly softer environment when returning to football. The team’s coach had recently been fired and the new one – according to Nyman, not a very modern coach – was under a lot of pressure.
It affected the players, including Nyman. The coach could stop training and stand half a meter from Nyman’s face, yelling about something he had done three weeks earlier in a match situation.
– In the end, you just had to try to survive and somehow get yourself to practice and matches. It’s not a good starting point when you should be performing at the best possible level.
A panic attack indicated that all was not well
Before her last match in Spain, Linda Nyman had a panic attack.
– I had a few panic attacks before, but never this bad. And never among humans. It was really scary and a little embarrassing at the same time. At the time it felt like a shame.
When breathing problems started to appear during training, he realized that it was time to seek the advice of a professional.
The idea behind the move to Spain was that he would start enjoying football again and catch up on lost games, but both the place and the time turned out to be wrong.
A disastrous hunt for lost time
The psychologist concluded that Nyman was close to burnout and encouraged him to take a break from football. However, he still felt pressure to make up for lost time. I had a dream of the European Championships in my mind.
Instead, against his better judgement, he accepted an offer from Aarhus in the Danish league.
– I didn’t enjoy myself there at all. I went to training, practiced, went to matches, played, but during the matches I was hoping to be substituted.
His memories of the six months he spent in Denmark are still hazy, and when the opportunity presented itself, he plucked up the courage to cancel his contract.
At the end of 2021, he moved home to his parents in Kokkola. There came a moment when he hit rock bottom.
– I had perhaps lived in a small bubble of football performance, so the uppermost feeling was one that many athletes can probably identify with. It feels like it’s not good if you can’t complete it. Feeling inadequate if you are not the best at what you do.
Nyman felt that he had failed himself and his goals, but also the people around him. He was sad that he couldn’t play—and at the same time sad that he didn’t really want to play.
When she was younger, Linda Nyman thought football was the only thing that defined her as a person. Now he knows better.
In Kokkola, Nyman joined the training group of track and field athletes again and found that he enjoyed moving again. Little by little, he put his soccer shoes back on and went to Kipparihalli to train with his father.
In the spring of 2022, he began to feel that he might still want to continue with football, but that it had to happen in a safe environment. He contacted HJK’s coach at the time To Jonne Municipalitywho welcomed him to the team with open arms.
However, Nyman was injured almost immediately and missed most of the season.
– Despite that, I found a lot of other good things and was able to really enjoy football again. I no longer take it for granted.
It finally took a whole year to emerge from the depths.
– The process is not linear, but goes up and down. Last fall, it started to feel like there were more good days than bad.
Throughout the process, he has thought that he does not want to be a victim of what happened to him. On the contrary, he has thought that it is something that makes him stronger and makes him who he is today.
Today, Linda Nyman, 29, knows she doesn’t have to. He is a good person to himself and to everyone around him. She is a good dog sitter and a good aunt to her brother’s boys.
– I know that I am enough as I am.
After going through his personal crisis, he would like to give advice to others who are not feeling well.
– I don’t know if it’s a cultural thing or what, but it seems that we Finns find it really difficult to ask for help. But if you even start thinking about whether it would be wise to talk to a professional, or if someone around you dares to say it out loud to you, that’s already a sign that it’s probably a good idea.