Seven years ago, Southampton midfielder Léo Scienza’s life shattered. On his 20th birthday, his father died, plunging him into despair. ‘I locked myself in my room for two months,’ he recalls. ‘My life had no meaning any more.’ Rejected by major Brazilian clubs and earning just £20-£40 per game, he felt his football dream was over.
Unscrupulous agents lured him to Sweden with promises of top-flight football, but he ended up at Fanna in the fifth tier, 80km north of Stockholm. ‘My dream turned into a nightmare,’ Scienza says. ‘I went through every possible difficulty you can imagine.’ Financial woes and poor living conditions left him depressed again, crying almost daily.
Yet Scienza found a way back. ‘I started to overcome depression in Sweden,’ he explains. ‘Even though the league was awful, I began to pick myself up.’ He scored 10 goals that season, earning promotion and catching the eye of an agent with Schalke connections. He fled his Swedish accommodation in a hurry, grabbing his suitcase and heading to Germany for a trial.
After two years in Schalke’s B team without breaking into the first team, Scienza feared dropping into Germany’s lower amateur divisions. But a move to Magdeburg in the second division revived his career, leading eventually to Heidenheim in the Bundesliga and then an £8m transfer to Southampton last summer. ‘I am in the most difficult league in the world,’ he says of the Championship. ‘It’s a bloodbath.’
Now 27, Scienza credits psychology with saving him. ‘My psychologist is one of the most important people in my life,’ he says. ‘You need someone to talk to. Not talking to anyone is digging yourself into an ever-deepening hole.’ He adds: ‘There are things in life we don’t control, but you can control how you react.’
