Joey bounces back
Author: Michael Auciello Courtesy: http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/
IT’S taken a long and painful recovery for Joey Didulica to realise that money can’t buy happiness.
More than 15 months on from copping a cracking strike to his chin while in goals for his Dutch club, the Geelong-born soccer export is still making his slow way back to the top of peak condition.
The 30-year-old was keeping in goals for AZ Alkmaar in October 2006, when good friend and Socceroo midfielder Jason Culina fired a shot for PSV Eindhoven that sent his head whipping back.
He was unconscious for more than an hour, before the club doctor sent him home, rather than to a hospital.
“It was pretty stupid actually, the doctor sent me home. It couldn’t have been a mild concussion when I was unconscious, but no player had been unconscious before on the field while he was there, so I think it was all pretty new to him,” Didulica said.
“But he made a bad decision in the end, not sending me to hospital for tests or anything.”
The Croatian international doesn’t have any memory of the incident, other than the sight of the ball crossing to Culina and into a one-on-one battle between the two in the 94th minute of the top of the table clash between AZ and PSV.
“I’ve come out and smothered the ball and I’ve copped it on the chin. Then I remember pretty much at home _ my mum was over from Australia,” Didulica said.
“I didn’t recognise my wife, I didn’t know I had a kid, I didn’t know anything. I was pretty much just dazed about the whole thing, but then my memory slowly came back about what happened.”
Didulica endured more than six months of headaches and nausea and watching his muscles waste away as he remained bed-ridden.
The headaches still linger every now and then, but slowly Didulica is getting his body right.
“It’s been a nightmare, to be totally honest. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure as an athlete and I can imagine why for a lot of athletes it’s ended their career,” he said.
“Because first of all it takes probably a year of getting over the headaches, and then a lot of players can’t get back, they can’t get their bodies back. I’m fortunate to be working with the best to get me back into shape.”
At times like that, thoughts of retirement, and giving up his dream, weren’t far away.
“I was lying with my wife thinking `what the hell am I doing here, I might as well give it up’,” Didulica said.
“Money becomes insignificant when you’re in such a state. They bought me for over $2 million (but the injury’s) enough to give away what anybody would give their right arm for _ a million dollar contract _ you’d throw it away tomorrow if it meant getting better.
“That plays in your mind a lot in the initial six months, but I had good people around me, good support from family, and my wife and kids, they kept me going. If it wasn’t for them you’d be struggling a little bit. But mentally it’s made me stronger and I’m glad for it.
“In the head you think it (retiring) but you don’t really take that next step and throw it away because you want to get yourself better and it’s too easy to give it away, you want to fight through it, give it your best shot.
“The support was phenomenal from everybody around me just to say `we’re here to help and you’re going to have your bad days but we’re going through it with you’.
“Without them it probably would have been easy to give it up. You tend to do it for others sometimes.”
Didulica is back in his hometown working with Geelong Football Club conditioning coach Dean Robinson in a program designed to get the goalkeeper back on the park as quickly as possible.
The pair is hopeful within six weeks he’ll be right to return back to his club, which is eager to have its keeper back as it languishes in 11th spot on the ladder.
“The club isn’t doing so well at the moment so they’re really keen to have me back and they’re always emailing me to see where I’m standing, but probably another four to six weeks for sure, maybe another few if it’s not going so well, but Deano’s confident everything should be cleaned up by six weeks,” Didulica said.
“I’ll probably have to play a few games with the seconds just to get me going again and if that goes well then it’s straight into the firsts.
“You see the boys out there and I didn’t like watching the games initially. I probably haven’t seen one game live, just that feeling of being out there again, you want it so badly and it made me frustrated and a little bit upset.
“That was the hardest, watching the preparation for the games, and the games, and not being out there.”ntsI’m a fanatic.”
