Jérémy Mathieu opens up on four years of depression and the Intersport job that let him live again

The photo went round social media in April 2025: Jérémy Mathieu, a two-time La Liga winner and 2015 Champions League winner with Barcelona, in an Intersport polo, folding tracksuits in a store in the south of France. The mockery came fast. In an interview with So Foot, picked up by L’Équipe and RMC Sport, the former France defender explains what that picture did not show: four years of depression.

A career stopped overnight

The end came at Sporting CP in 2020: a cruciate ligament rupture, and a forced retirement at 36, “overnight”. “I went through dark times for four years. Thank God my wife was there to help me out of it,” he told RMC Sport. He says he never dared to see anyone about it. Three seasons at Sporting (106 games) had just been added to the Barcelona years from 2014 to 2017 (91 games, two league titles, a Champions League) and five France caps between 2011 and 2016.

Selling at Intersport to live again

The way out of the tunnel carries a sport-retail logo. Two short-term contracts as a shop assistant at Intersport: “That job brought my colours back, gave me a social life again and, in the end, let me live again.” The April 2025 photo mostly earned him nasty comments: “The reactions were so mean. It is typically French: here, people only talk about money. There is no human side at all.” When an online troll insulted his wife and children, he sent him his home address: “He could insult me, but not my wife or my kids. That is the red line.”

The coaching badge, then the U15 bench in Aix

At 42, Mathieu is studying for his coaching badge and manages the U15 side at Aix-en-Provence. He tried to return to Sporting and was offered an assistant job with the reserves at Sochaux, his boyhood club. His story echoes Steve Mandanda’s, who has written a book about the “days after” football: the end of a career remains the hardest match of a footballer’s life.