Andres Iniesta reveals depression struggle after Barcelona treble win
Barcelona legend Andres Iniesta has candidly detailed his battle with depression after the club's treble-winning 2008-09 season.
Barca, with Iniesta as an integral cog in midfield, won La Liga, the Copa del Rey, and the Champions League in their first season under Pep Guardiola's management. Their all-conquering squad that year is regarded by some as one of the greatest sides ever to play the game.
That groundbreaking success was followed, however, by shock and grief as Iniesta's friend Dani Jarque, an esteemed Espanyol center-back, died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 26 in August 2009.
In his 2016 autobiography, Iniesta, who lifted his Spain shirt to reveal an undershirt with the message "Dani Jarque, siempre con nosotros" ("Dani Jarque, always with us") after scoring the extra-time winner in the 2010 World Cup final, wrote that people could be pushed to do "crazy" things by such pain.
When asked if he had been alluding to thoughts of suicide, Iniesta said, as quoted by ESPN's Sam Marsden: "Yes, you are talking about very extreme situations. Not because I wanted to do it or even thought of doing it, but because you are not yourself.
"I know that when you are very vulnerable it is difficult to control moments and things happen in moments, in seconds, they are decisions that you make because you are not well...
"It all started after winning the treble with Barca that summer. You score the goal against Chelsea (in the Champions League semifinals), you win the Champions League, you win three trophies, an unbelievable year ... and then comes the summer and you start feeling down.
"There is something wrong but you don't know what it is. And you start an internal process, thinking you feel bad but you do not know why. You have some tests and everything is fine, but you don't feel well and you enter a loop in which you end up feeling very empty. And then (there was) what happened with Dani Jarque.
"I remember that we came back from that preseason and one afternoon I was at home and I felt really bad. I called Dr. Pruna and told him that we do something or I don't know what's going to happen. I was not myself. And that same afternoon we went to the training ground and I said to him: 'I need help, I need something ... I need something because otherwise, I won't get out of this slump.' I wanted it to get to night time so that I could take a pill and sleep."
Though he then struggled with an injury-riddled 2009-10 campaign, Iniesta would ultimately be his nation's hero in the 2010 World Cup final, a moment which appeared to reinvigorate the diminutive midfielder. He played for eight more seasons at Barcelona before leaving to join Vissel Kobe in Japan last summer.