Injuries are a part of football, but when players suffer long term setbacks, it can be as much of a mental challenge than it is a physical one.
Sunderland’s Luke O’Nien suffered a shoulder injury back in November and was told that he had to undergo surgery before his recovery, side-lining him for over three months.
Although it can be a big task to recover physically, one of the toughest tasks that injured players face is to keep a good frame of mental health due to the fact that they may feel isolated or alone when in recovery, and are not able to do the thing they love.
When talking to O’Nien about his injury and recovery process, he was very open about sharing his feelings and emotions that he has experienced during his 100 day recovery.
“I’m always talking to ex-teammates who are senior and they have been through similar things. I reach out to people that have been through something similar to use their experience to help you through it.
“When you’re young, you want to give the impression to everybody that you’re on top of things. When I first moved up here I wanted to give the impression that I was dealing with moving up here and being independent, so I would’t reach out to them [family] as much as I do now.
“In sport, a lot of people are retiring and they have a lot of experience and if we could have a few mentors in the game, that could help.”
O’Nien missed 22 matches for Sunderland while out with his injury, with his last appearance coming in the Black Cats 1-1 draw with Shrewsbury Town.
“You train to prepare as best as you can for the games, the buzz around the game, the feeling you get with it, always trying to battle for the three points. It’s something that is very hard to be replaced once you get injured.”
O’Nien made his return to the squad on Tuesday against Fleetwood Town and scored a goal just ten minutes after being substituted on.
It is not the first time that O’Nien has been very open to talking about his feelings. He took to Instagram a couple of weeks ago to give an insight on what he has been feeling and gave his reasons for why he felt the need to use the platform to talk about his situation.
“If you have one follower, you’re an influencer, so you have to make sure you’re influencing the right things, something that your kids or family would be proud to see. If you put the truth out there, people might connect to it.”
O’Nien made himself clear that he wanted to use social media platforms for constructive purposes, to try and relate to other players going through similar things.
“If I can connect with just one person with that post then that’s amazing. I’ve never had so much engagement back, so it worked.
“I’d like to see more people post the truths of when they are struggling. If you go through peoples’ social media every picture is glammed up, every picture has a nice, positive caption.
“The worlds not like that so to show the other side of it just so one person might connect with it would be great.”
Although his post received a lot of positive feedback, O’Nien still made his opinions of social media clear.
“I’m leaning towards negative. Everyone’s got to be careful with what they are seeing consciously or unconsciously. They created it for good but I actually feel like it is having more of a negative impact on people.
“I think there should be more education behind it. I think social media releases the same hormones as gambling, drugs and alcohol, but people aged ten are on it. Thats just my opinion.”
