From the outside, all they saw was a former footballer who had put on weight.
Wesley Sneijder, 42, broke his silence about the weight he gained after retiring from football, and the reason has nothing to do with the comfortable life of a former player.
He said his mother died at 59, about 6 months after she was diagnosed with cancer. A devastating blow that only foreshadowed the worst.
Two months later, his father went back for a checkup and the doctors confirmed that the disease had progressed.
His father decided to fight and died 9 to 10 months later, also at 59. For about 3 and a half years, Sneijder’s life was divided between the hospital and his family.
He stopped training regularly and, when he left there, all he wanted to do was eat or drink so he wouldn’t think about what he had been through.
Today he is working to get back in shape and says he is making progress. But he summed it up with a phrase that says it all: losing weight won’t bring his mother or father back.