As much as we like to believe that superstar footballers live lives of fantasy and glamour, constantly doing things that other people would pay to see, that really isn’t the case. All Footballers, including the superstars, have to make sacrifices just like anyone else in pursuit of any other dream.
Often, this pursuit leads to the sacrifice of a steady home for their family to grow in, and no one takes this harder, or is more affected by it, than kids.
If you have ever moved, then you know the kind of mental fatigue, emotional stress, and anxiety it can induce. Your friends are gone. Your room isn’t yours. And you might even have to learn a new language. It’s an upheaval the likes of which can be life defining, and can change you forever.
Going home — the home where the heart belongs, not where it happens to be at a certain time — is a pipe dream for most every child that has moved, and that pipe dream is even more closed to reality for children of a professional footballer. It is entirely possible that a player will move five times in five years. That’s five upheavals over which the player has little to no control most of the time; they must go where they are wanted, and where they will get paid. Along with them come a family that may be numb, may be agitated, may be resentful of the life they are forced to live.
This is why you see nothing less than unbridled joy when Dirk Kuyt tells his children they are going back to their homeland, the Netherlands.
This seen is a fantasy; an idyllic thing that is made so by the spectacular setting it is taking place in. The children are happy, hugging, and down right frolicking in the late afternoon sunlight in their back yard; the view is incredible.
De eerste reactie van zijn kinderen als @Kuyt verklapt dat ‘papa’ weer bij Feyenoord gaat voetballen. Genieten! https://t.co/XWAMR4bEqh
— Feyenoord Rotterdam (@Feyenoord) August 18, 2015For this moment, everything was happy and right. If no one else, the children deserved it.
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