Marc-André ter Stegen was 10 years old when his father left home.
He never saw him again. Today, at 34 and after spending nearly his entire career at Barça, the German goalkeeper talks about it without bitterness and without casting himself as a victim: “You can’t miss what you never had”. When he was already playing for Barcelona, he received the news that his father had died. He felt sad, but nothing like the emptiness of losing someone who had been there for him.
What he did have, he says, were the people who stayed. His mother, whom he describes as his everything and with whom he had a very close relationship during childhood. And his grandfather, who took him to training and ultimately became the father figure he was missing: discreet, never making a fuss, but present, constant, and full of affection.
Over the years, he came to understand something else. His grandfather also enjoyed that role, because accompanying the boy who dreamed of becoming a goalkeeper gave him a purpose of his own.
Ter Stegen doesn’t talk about what he lost. He talks about the people who filled that place ❤️