Juventus, Fagioli: “I was betting out of boredom. Addiction? I won’t stop fighting it”

Juventus, Fagioli: “I was betting out of boredom, the game had devoured my life”

The disqualification behind him, the return to the field with the Juventus shirt and then also the call from Spalletti, among the 30 players who will make up the list of players called up for the European Championship: Nicolò Fagioli it’s coming back back to normality after the months away from playing football and in an interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport he talks about the abyss into which he had sunk due to his gambling habit. “It had devoured my life, it had become a torment, a nightmare.”

“When I burst into tears in the match against Sassuolo, it wasn’t just because I had put my team in difficulty, but because at that moment a dark cloud descended, everything seemed negative, everything was dark. I had missed a ball, but my biggest mistake was within myself. The problem is that I was no longer in control of myself. The game had devoured my life, it had become a torment, a nightmare”, says the Juventus midfielder. “I know that I am a lucky boy, that there are my peers in more dramatic conditions than mine, that I have no right to invoke understanding. But I also don’t want to be hypocritical. I was swallowed up by a void that doesn’t look anyone in the face, which does not distinguish by social class, does not reward or absolve based on talent. I felt suffocated but I couldn’t find a way to get out of it.”

“It all started as a game. I bet a lot, but not on my team or on myself. I didn’t want to violate principles I believe in. I know it seems grotesque that I use this word, but it’s important to me. I thought that playing football and betting, if the two lines didn’t cross, wasn’t serious. I have not done harm to sport, I have not influenced results or harmed the rights of others”, the words of Nicolò Fagioli to the Gazzetta.

“When the 4-5 hours of training are over, a void opens up. If you have no other interests, that abyss attracts you. I was bored, it seems absurd but it’s true. Success is not an armor that resists loneliness, it does not allow you, like armor, to bounce off the stabs of empty time. Think about how many actors, writers, musicians have fallen into even more lethal addictions. Boredom ruined my life. And then every problem, even the stupidest one like an argument or a bad match, I had to compensate for with the adrenaline rushes that the game gave me. Every time I used that evil called cell phone, every day and many times a day, I felt like I was on the pitch. I never talked about it with anyone because I was ashamed. I completely lost control of myself in January 2023. I played badly, I trained worse. His head was elsewhere. What I was experiencing disgusted me, but I couldn’t help it. The center of my life was betting, no longer football. I felt upside down. If I missed a pass, I told myself that that obsession was to blame,” he explained to Gazzetta dello Sport.

Juventus, Fagioli: “Addiction? I won’t stop fighting it. Now I dominate it”

Nicolò Fagioli says: “When can addiction be defeated? I don’t know, maybe never. I know that I haven’t stopped and won’t stop fighting it. I would be a liar if I said that it doesn’t resurface, that it doesn’t make her seductive song heard every now and then. But now I dominate him by simply thinking about how much harm he has done to me. And I know that there is no such thing as “I’ll only do it once” because that snake grabs you and won’t let go. I think now that the game is a thing for losers,” Fagioli said.

Nicolò Fagioli and the dream of Euro 2024 with Spalletti’s Italy

Now the Juventus and Italian national champion looks to the future: “I had a great desire for revenge. More about myself than others. From the day after the disqualification I started training. It was seven months of agony, I was counting the days. My life is here, on these green fields, to win or lose based on my talent and that of my team, not to waste my days and hundreds of thousands of euros, so much have I lost, ruining myself and feeling guilty”. And who knows? that there won’t be a national team in the immediate future. “I didn’t expect Spalletti to be called up, but I hoped for it. Now I want to give my life to be on the list for the European Championship. If I don’t succeed, I will support the Azzurri.”