Former striker Alessandro Matri says fear of illness after Milan flop led him to therapy

A clip before the sixth episode

Alessandro Matri spoke in a clip shown before his performance in the sixth episode of Ballando con le stelle, the Saturday night show on Rai 1. The former footballer, who is competing alongside Giada Lini, described a stretch of his life in which professional setbacks grew into a far more serious problem affecting his mental health. He linked the start of that period to his return to Milan after leaving Juventus, where he had scored 30 goals in two and a half years. At Milan, he said, the collapse felt like a bereavement, and he began to feel like a burden to the people around him. He described shutting himself indoors in the evenings.

“Like all great loves, when you love something so much, then there is the collapse.”

Fear of serious illness

The hardest period, Matri said, was not confined to the pitch. His loss of confidence and self-esteem came with obsessive worries that he was seriously ill. He told the programme he had fallen into a depression marked by strong hypochondria, and that he feared he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS, as well as multiple sclerosis. At one point he believed he had ALS, and he described feeling vulnerable during those months. The fears pushed him further into isolation, which he said made the situation worse rather than easier.

Speaking out and therapy

Matri argued that footballers often feel they must look invulnerable, which makes them reluctant to discuss fear with coaches, teammates or club presidents. He said that a player keeps all of his fears to himself in this way.

“A footballer thinks he is a superhero for the people, he is afraid to talk about these things with the coach, teammates or the president.”

He said the turning point came when he told his partner, Federica Nargi, and his parents that he was afraid he had something serious. He described feeling cared for and protected after that conversation, and he then began therapy, which he says helped him feel steadily better. In his account, the shift came from speaking up rather than waiting for the fears to pass.

Fears that remain

Matri said he still has small fears and has medical tests every six months, but he says he now lives with them more easily. He also credited the birth of his daughters with pulling his attention away from the problem.

“I still have small fears, I do tests every six months. I live with it, but better.”

The segment presented his struggle as ongoing rather than resolved, in his own description of how he manages it today.