Chelsea legend, John Terry has revealed he considered k!lling himself after his penalty miss in the 2008 Champions League final.
The former England defender slipped and hit the post with what could have been the decisive spot-kick against Manchester United, before the Red Devils eventually won the shoot-out at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.
Now Terry, 45, admits he considered suicide from the 25th floor of the team’s hotel, before his team-mates led him away.
Speaking to Reece Mennie on his podcast, he said: ‘Looking back, I would have loved at that time to have spoken to someone because I remember after the game, we all went back to the hotel, and I was on the 25th floor in Moscow, and I’m just looking out the window, just going, “Why? Why?”
‘I’m not saying if I had that opportunity that you’d jump, but you know things go through your head at that particular time.
‘Then the boys came up, and they took me downstairs. It’s those moments that you have the “what if?” You just never know, do you.’
He added: ‘At the time, three or four days later, we went and met up with England so now we’re sitting across the dining table with the Man United players, which was the worst thing ever anyway!
‘But then we played America at Wembley and I ended up scoring, I scored a header from outside the box, and just after that I was like, “why couldn’t I just swap that moment for that?”
‘Still even now today, it goes over in my head. It has softened over the years for sure but I think when you’re playing and you’re churning out game after game, season after season, you compartmentalise it a little bit and put it right to the back.
‘But it’s now that I’m retired, I’ve not got that focus of playing every week or playing in front of the supporters and having that buzz, that it really gets me. I still wake up middle of the night and go oh yeah it did happen, and I don’t think that I’ll ever go.’
Four years later, Chelsea beat Bayern Munich on penalties, and Terry finally got to lift the trophy, although he didn’t play as he was suspended for the match after being sent off in the semi-finals against Barcelona.
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