Adam Lallana: Inside the body and mind of a Liverpool player - the heart
'Heart' within football is a particularly pertinent discussion point for Adam Lallana, who suffered a scare when he was 18. Here, he discusses that period of his career and also how playing with heart and desire can sometimes be the difference-maker…
“Footballers show their will to win in different ways…”
It’s a difficult one to speak about as people have different levels – some people may show it more than others, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to win as much. Some people might be more aggressive with it, some may be more passive and relaxed – it’s about getting the combination of the 11 men on the pitch right. You don’t want all 11 all wearing their hearts on their sleeves and being aggressive. It’s about the right balance and that comes from the manager, his team selection, how he wants you to play and the characters he’s got in his team – and I think we’ve got a good balance in our team.
“Never being prepared to give up on a game can get you over the line…”
The Dortmund game springs to mind straight away. From the early days when the manager came in, he would turn around to the crowd and get them to keep supporting the lads right until the end. The matches last for 95 or more minutes now. I think it was West Brom at home when Divock scored [an equaliser] in the last minute, that came off the back of the manager getting the crowd going. If I’ve seen anyone believe and keep fighting right until the last minute, it is the manager. He certainly doesn’t let us stop believing until the whistle has been blown.
“When I was 18, I had a heart murmur…”
It was frustrating at the time. I didn’t really have any symptoms, it was just the heart-rate monitors that we wore revealed I was spiking at irregular beats. That could have become a serious issue, but luckily it wasn’t. I was very young at the time and probably didn’t really understand the severity of it. I’m grateful to have come through that and had the issue addressed, and I’ve not looked back since. Your health is a massive part of being a footballer; nowadays we have the echo scans and everything like that, which the doctor sorts out. There have been a couple of tragic incidents in recent years, unfortunately, including Fabrice Muamba, who I played with at England level – he obviously had a very serious problem and now doesn’t play anymore. I learned a lot from my own issue being so young. I didn’t play for four or five months. I felt well enough to play and didn’t see the issue, but now I fully understand why. It was a challenge I had to overcome in my career and I think I’ve learned a lot from it.