The midlife crisis is not just a cliché or an easy title for a comedy. It is a process analysed by Psychology in which some people, especially men, question their existence, a product of the routine of their life as a couple, physical changes, or frustrated work expectations. In football, things get worse because turning 40 marks the retirement boundary for the lucky ones and the beginning of a new stage with fewer emotions. It's hard to match the feelings experienced on the field. The millionaires' unemployment may seem irreverent to call it that way, but it is also an emotional unemployment that affects those who suffer from it as well as those who share it. Divorces come.
Manuel Neuer did not wait until 40 to do so, nor does he think about retirement after turning 40 last month. He can be playful like a teenager to get injured on a ski slope, or mature like a forty-year-old to wear a rainbow armband and challenge the establishment, but always firm in Bayern's goal when needed. He was at the Bernabeu and knows he must be at the Allianz, as this veteran goalkeeper knows well that any crisis, including the one at 40, is best faced from a wall, whether physical or emotional.
"Doubts come from your body"
"Both things are important, but at this moment for Neuer, the main thing is physical. When you reach 40 years old under the goal, your concern is that your body responds because you already know everything else, you have experience and know the situations that may arise. Doubts, on the other hand, can come from your body," explains Andrés Palop, who played actively until he was 41, at Bayer Leverkusen, although after a last season with little prominence, he decided to retire.
"From what we saw at the Bernabeu, it doesn't seem like Neuer is facing that dilemma, to be honest. It will be his physical condition that dictates the timing," adds the former Valencia and Sevilla goalkeeper, among others, now in the team of the AC Talent agency, led by the agent Arturo Canales.
"Another thing that has happened to us goalkeepers who have been active for so long is having to adapt to changes, whether in the rules or even in the balls, always designed for goals, for forwards, not for us. But goalkeepers are not like the rest of the players. We suffer, we are alone on the field, we do different things, and we don't complain," Palop continues. The Valencian links his explanation to the case of the German: "Neuer had an advantage because he already appeared with everything that is required of a modern goalkeeper today, he had it as standard. I think he has the best footwork in the world in a goal, and he was already like that from a very young age, at Schalke."
Neuer's last season in the Ruhr basin team was the first for Raúl, a generational crossover between two European football and Champions League leaders. Palop, who left football in 2014, faced that Schalke team, "although Neuer was still a substitute back then." The German's ease described for playing with his feet was a goldmine for Pep Guardiola when he arrived at Bayern. Among his many experiments, the Catalan, an alchemist coach, considered trying Neuer in midfield in a match, as revealed by Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in an interview. "It was difficult to dissuade him from this intention, which could have been interpreted as an act of arrogance. However, I believe Neuer would have done well as a midfielder," explained the former forward and general manager of Bayern.
Guardiola was dissuaded from what Javier Clemente did with Molina in a national team match, on the goalkeeper's debut day, but in midfield. Neuer would have liked the experience, for sure. He loves risk, new experiences, although some have caused controversies. Like the decision to go skiing after returning from the Qatar World Cup, something prohibited by any professional football contract, like riding a motorcycle or engaging in risky sports. A footballer is also an asset. The Gelsenkirchen-born goalkeeper played down the incident by saying it was cross-country skiing. It's hard to break a tibia and fibula in that practice, but anything is possible. Already established as a great captain of Bayern, the club where players have the most say because after being players, they become executives, he was understanding with his goalkeeper. Not a reproach. Who knows if Neuer, already part of the aristocracy of the Bavarian club, will follow in the footsteps of Beckenbauer, Rummenigge, or Hoeness.
His passion for risk also led him to accept a proposal from Disney to voice a character in Monster University, although other risky decisions have been by conviction. After undergoing two facial surgeries for carcinomas, a type of skin cancer, he decided to invest in creating a line of sunscreen cosmetics, alongside tennis player Angelique Kerber. "Both of us have very personal stories when it comes to skin diseases," he explained.
In 2011, he encouraged gay footballers to come out, "because it relieves." When the Euro 2020 arrived, where Hungary under ViktorOrban was to play in Munich, he wore a rainbow captain's armband for the first time. He repeated it at the Qatar World Cup, a challenge to his own Federation and to UEFA and FIFA.
His statement fueled rumours about his own homosexuality, something he didn't bother to deny, while he could be seen in Munich with models Katrin Gilch or Nina Weiss, with whom he was married. Months after his divorce, he started a relationship with handball player Alika Bisell, who bears an extraordinary resemblance to his ex-wife but is 15 years younger than the goalkeeper. A real antibody against the midlife crisis, if it ever lurked around the goal of this risk-loving individual whom a good part of Germans asks to return to the Mannschaft for the World Cup and among whom Madrid wants to find its final test of life.