27-year-old footballer Dele Alli was once regarded as one of the top midfielders and young football talents in the world when he broke into the scenes for English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the England national football team a few years ago. Alli, who scored 22 goals in 50 appearances for Spurs in the 2016/2017 Season, could have become the then most expensive English player ever in the history of football, had European football powerhouses such as Real Madrid and Manchester United were able to met the London outfit’s asking price of £100 million back in 2017.
Everything Went Wrong for Alli After the 2017/2018 Season
The former Milton Keynes Dons, Tottenham Hotspur and Beşiktaş J.K. player, who was once rated highly by the most successful British football manager ever Sir Alex Ferguson, had his career gone downhill since the start of the 2018/2019 Season due to injuries, a huge dip in his form and a series of uncharacteristic behaviour and actions, which includes an apparent mocking of an Asian while joking about the Covid-19 outbreak, suspensions, questionable training attitude and limited playing minutes.
These issues subsequently saw him being sold to fellow Premier League club Everton and made only 13 appearances over two seasons for the Toffees. He is currently back to the Merseyside Blue after ending a loan move to Turkish side Beşiktaş.
Alli Molested Aged Six, Smoked Aged Seven and Dealt Drugs Aged Eight
27-year-old Dele Alli recently gave a public interview to Manchester United legend and former captain Gary Neville for football podcast The Overlap, where he spoked about his childhood experience and pinpointed the moment where his career went wrong after almost reaching the peak of football players.
In that 44-minute video, Alli revealed that he had traumatic memories as a kid after being born to an alcoholic mother. During the span of three years from aged six to eight, the midfielder was molested by a friend of his mom’s, and had dealt with cigarettes as well as drugs. All of these devastating events only ended when Alli was taken to his adopted family, who overturned his life to the better direction afterwards.
Dele Alli says it all to @GNev2. ❤️
“That was heartbreaking”.pic.twitter.com/lySmw8n4kw
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 13, 2023
Alli Considered Retirement at the Age of 24
The player who made 37 international caps for the Three Lions from 2015 to 2019 thanked the then Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino for giving him the opportunity to rise to the occasion, stating that he could not ask for a “Better manager and management team” and calling their relationship deeper “Than just a footballer and manager one”. He ended his opinions on the Argentine gaffer by stating “He was so understanding of the decisions I was making. He cared about me as a person before the football”.
Nonetheless, it was after the Pochettino era in Spurs that saw Alli’s career fall off, and the two-time PFA Young Player of the Year winner even thought about retirement when Pochettino’s replacement Jose Mourinho decided not to put him in the starting line-up for Tottenham for competitive matches.
Alli said: “One morning I woke up and I had to go to training – this is when he’d stopped playing me – and I was in a bad place. I was literally staring in the mirror and I was asking if I could retire now, at 24, doing the thing I love. That was heartbreaking.” The Milton Keynes-born player also added that his former Portuguese manager had apologised to him over the “Lazy attitude” remark, a scene which was deleted in the All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur documentary.
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Spent Six Weeks in Rehab Centre for Sleeping-Pill Addictions
What is more is that the midfielder too opened up that he had just completed a six-week rehab in a facility in the United States after his loan move to Beşiktaş was ended. Such an issue was due to his abuse to sleeping-pills to counter the disturbing memories he had as a kid and the ongoing slump in his professional career.
Alli stated: “Things I was doing to numb the feelings I had: I didn’t realise I was doing it for that purpose, whether it be drinking or whatever. It started with that and then I got addicted to sleeping tablets. It’s probably a problem that not only I have but it’s something going around more than people realise in football. Maybe me coming out and speaking about it can help people. I definitely abused them too much. I would stop sometimes and go a few months without them but I was never really dealing with the problem.”
Players and Former Teammates Praised Alli for Speaking Out
The interview witnessed former United right-back Neville consoling his compatriot and interviewee, and players, including Alli’s former teammates in Tottenham Hotspur as well as the England national team echoed the midfielders sentiments, with Three Lions’ skipper Harry Kane complimenting Alli for speaking out to help others and Korean forward Son Heung-min sending a heartfelt message that reads “Your brave words will help so many people. Proud of you mate *Heart emoji*”.
We at otherleague.com wish Dele Alli the best for his future and hope that he can revive his professional career soon. You can check out the rest of the podcast interview in the following video:
