Pressure is not easy for players to handle, especially for those who are very young and have a lot of pressure on their shoulders. This is the case of Jeff Dewnsup, a former US goalkeeper, who left football at just 18 and gave himself up to music
Pressure is not easy for players to handle, especially for those who are very young and have a lot of pressure on their shoulders. This is the case of Jeff Dewnsup, an American goalkeeper. Indeed, it is appropriate to say “ex” goalkeeper, because he left football at just 18 years old, despite being requested by many high-level European teams after some appearances in the stars and stripes youth national teams. But the weight of expectations was crushing him, until he convinced him that it was for the best. And that finding a new path away from the field could be the solution to his problems.
The pressure of the predestined
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He told it himself to Sportbible, explaining what goes through the head of a teenager who predict an important future in football. And above all, the reasons that led him to retire a year ago, when PSV, Crystal Palace and Borussia Dortmund were monitoring him. “I can’t complain about my first year professionally, I played 25 games with the reserve team and was often on the bench with the Real Salt Lake first team.” That is the US franchise of which he was the youngest player ever to be signed. But that year was also devastating. “I was constantly struggling from the pressure, you couldn’t tell why I was playing well anyway, but so many things had negative effects on my mental health. And in the end the pressure was too much, as was the anxiety it caused me.”
From the field to the stage
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And therefore, before the start of the 2022 MLS season, the decision to quit. “When I played I was a monster, I put everything away and played well. But you play 90 minutes and then you have the rest of your life to live and I had problems. When I started taking drugs I decided to try to figure out how I could get back to to be happy. And I pulled away from football, I was tired of how it made me feel, I was becoming someone I didn’t want to be. It wasn’t something I wanted to keep doing, I wanted to live a life that I enjoyed.” And she found an outlet. “Nothing made me feel happy, but music saved me, it allowed me to express myself”. Thus, The Johns were born, the band of Dewsnup, who is the composer of the songs. And the thing works, since the group has released an album and does concerts. “Music is something worth doing,” explains the former goalkeeper. And football now… it’s just background music.
January 22, 2023 (change January 22, 2023 | 12:05)
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