Amputated ex-Premier League star says he no longer feels like former footballer
Bruno Rodriguez has detailed the moment he 'no longer felt like an ex-footballer' after the former Premier League talent had the lower half of his right leg amputated.
The Frenchman has spoken of his journey from the summit of football to feeling a disconnect from his playing career. Rodriguez, 50, detailed how painkilling injections into a problematic ankle over the years led to serious complications once he'd hung up his boots.
In fact, the pain was so severe that the former Paris Saint-Germain and Bradford City attacker volunteered to have his leg amputated below the knee. Rodriguez elected to have the surgery not long after his mother died, and partner Marianne was by his side to begin a new phase of their lives together.
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“When I came round, the first thing I did was to ask my wife to come over to me and lift up the sheet, so that we could see together the loss of the leg,” he told The Times of his awakening after surgery. “I was able to share that moment with my wife, she was there. In fact, it was more of a relief than anything.”
Many might think the loss of such a vital appendage for a footballer – even a retired one – would lead to some form of identity crisis. It wasn't until Rodriguez was surrounded by similarly stricken souls at a rehabilitation centre near Paris that he was lifted from an initial low in reaction to his loss.
"There, I was no longer Bruno Rodriguez, ex-footballer, I was an amputee like everyone else," he continued. "Everyone had been through something extremely serious, but we all supported each other; if someone wasn’t having a good day, we’d lift them up. I found more of a team spirit in that ordeal than I had known before."
After shining for Metz in a close-run battle for the Ligue 1 crown, Rodriguez earned a transfer to modern-day giants PSG. However, he soon clashed with the club's authorities and was soon loaned to Bradford, who were then a part of the Premier League.
He returned to France in 2000 and spent the final five years of his career at six different clubs, never quite managing to recapture the form enjoyed in the late 1990s. Having managed to cope with an ankle injury that never healed due to high levels of maintenance, it wasn't until his retirement that the true damage emerged.
Rodriguez said psychiatrists were 'surprised he had managed to hold out for so long' given the pain he had endured throughout his career. One former PSG doctor, Éric Rolland, assisted in his amputation while certain former team-mates have offered support, but Rodriguez added France's football powers "bury their heads, like ostriches."
"No one talks about [the risks],” he explained. “Football and rugby are so popular; all that is secondary. People only see what glitters. They don’t see the physical sacrifices. People are losing their heads, for what, a ten-year sporting career, to win a few games? The life afterwards counts for what exactly?
"I was 33 when I ended my career, and I’ve suffered every day since then. My wife will vouch for me. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t go out. All that, for what? To line the pockets of others? Because that’s what it comes down to."
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