When everything fell apart and went black, it wasn’t the goals that brought Madeleine Januji back to the football field.
The painting was.
– It was my free zone where I didn’t have to think.
Madeleine Januji She wanders into the closet in the apartment hall in southern Stockholm, where she lives with her partner.
It is full of pens, cubes, beads and other creative things but there are also traces of the footballer Ganuji. On the shelf are three tampons.
– That’s it, I will probably return these to training, you say before choosing what you are looking for.
It is a large pile of papers that the 26-year-old takes with him and enters the living room and kitchen together.
A colored pile symbolizes the dark exit. Because all of a sudden, Madeleine Januji’s daily life was so black.
-Obviously it can pass quickly because I had no idea before I just crashed, but it also shows the beauty of being able to come back.
In the spring of 2020, she chose to terminate her contract with the German big club and return home. At first, everything was difficult, even the smallest everyday thing.
The 26-year-old hardly wanted to get out of bed in the morning. You didn’t see the target.
You’ve obviously felt bad before, but not at that level. I remember my psychiatrist told me to walk around, but I couldn’t even take a walk. Get up and make breakfast. Why should I prepare breakfast? I am not hungry. What should I do then?
The thing that walks did not work. However, the painting did.
On the round black dining table, plates are spread out.
– Anything can happen here, you say and start browsing:
– Here we also have a lot of things that we drew with the national team. I think Curmark has a board here somewhere. I painted the MER bottle.
Very true, it does not take several seconds before the bottle appears among the photos.
– I still think that since it’s the first time, it’s fine, says Gannuji and presents the next stage:
– This is Benny’s making. very well. I’ve never drawn before either.
The 26-year-old from Falköping puts the photo depicting a woman’s face back on and continues to look through the pile, which are much more than paintings to her.
But something is missing.
– It has been interesting to see the pictures since I started drawing, but the question is where do I have the little lump, she says and begins to search the apartment frantically.
– I started with a small piece as soon as I started drawing. where I just drove. The question is where do I have it?
Januji goes out to the locker in the hall to see if she has missed something, but there is no block there.
– So it wouldn’t surprise me if I accidentally threw it away, she says and looked behind the pictures on the table again.
Then she suddenly came to another place where she could be. She gets down on her knees and begins to look under the large sofa next to the dining table.
– yes! wait! I think I found it…
With a triumphant expression on her face, she removes the lump, but the big smile quickly disappears. Not much left in the block. Most of it ruptured.
At the same time as I started a little depressed to talk about those first pictures of the colorful Disney characters, the black-and-white motifs and faces, flipping across the pile on the table.
– No, but here! here they are!
Janogy proudly displays a pink and yellow photo showing the two familiar faces of The Lion King.
Timon and Pumbaa. This was kind of the beginning. When I just sat down and drew, she says, I kept flipping through the A4 sheets.
– This is actually very intense… When I look at these pictures, it’s the beginning of my drawing and my rehabilitation. This is how it started. I remember how proud I was when I first drew this. It was very cool.
At first, she often painted. The 26-year-old could sit at the table for hours and just paint and paint. Finishing the idea could be the goal of the day.
– It was very important for me to find something so that the days would not pass by and do nothing, because that did not make me satisfied, she says.
– Now when I look at them like that, I’m happy. I guess it was kind of like my free zone, where I didn’t have to think. You’ve found something that you think is fun because it wasn’t fun at first. When it was hard, like, but this one I remember thinking it was really funny.
There is no doubt that painting and luxury go hand in hand. The better you feel, the bigger the plates become.
Now some are hung on the white walls of the renovated two-room apartment.
– I think my first drawings were actually those, she says, pointing to a color palette.
It depicts an African woman sitting on the wall next to the sofa. Under the shelf are a WC bronze from 2019 and an Olympic silver from 2021.
– I remember sending a lot of pictures to my close friends and feel proud. Check out what you’ve prepared!
It’s noticeable that she mentions this feeling because it really shines through when she tells the story.
– What I mean by looking at this day makes me see how far I’ve come. I remember when I sat down and made them very far from where I am today. It is a nice.
Now she doesn’t draw often. It is no longer needed.
– At first I needed to go home because I was too tired mentally. Now I have a lot of other time taking things that I want to do, so I don’t have the time that I had before.
Despite the heavy blow dealt by her latest professional adventure, she is eager to try again.
– Yes, I totally feel that I am. I’m in a completely different place and I learned a lot about myself too, so I’m not afraid of that anymore. It feels so nice to feel like I want to go abroad. I’m not afraid of that.
I feel now that if I’m going abroad, you have to take it for what it is because you never know how it’s going. I’m not too afraid of failure and I don’t think it can go wrong like it did last time because now I’m more prepared and have the keys.
At first, were you afraid of not daring to go out again?
Yes, of course, but first of all I will not return to football at all. I didn’t want to play football either. This was probably the biggest fear because it was such a big part and then I was glad I didn’t have to play.
But she managed to come back.
After being completely away from football for a few months, the news came that Januji will return to Bethio in August 2020, the club that SM Gold won two years ago.
– There were probably many who wondered why I went to Petio, but it was very important for me to go there. It was soon that I did not go there, and I went to another club.
You take an art break and think, you think about that summer a couple of years ago. Then when she had already made her decision to go somewhere else.
– Then I went to bed and felt that no, I don’t feel well. I just felt like no, I’m going to Piteå, then I called my agent and said I was going to Piteå, that’s the right thing. It was just a gut feeling that he said no, I don’t feel good, I want to go to Piteå and it was very important for me to go there and not somewhere else right then and there.
When Madelen Janogy describes what she learned from this journey, a lot is about being in the here and now, but also trusting yourself.
For me, it was just about not giving up anything all the time, but always doing everything one hundred percent. I’ve always been able to trust that if I do that and just work hard, I know the rest will come.
But this security was not always there. She thanks Betio coach Stellan Carlson for that.
(Listen to Januji talking about the importance of the coach in the clip)
But last season Jannuji opted to move south, among other things to be closer to family. When we meet her in the cool Kanalplan, it’s clear that she’s an environment in which to thrive.
– Speaking for myself, I think it flows and I enjoy it. Then, from a team perspective, it really looks like we’ve found the right place, even if we don’t get all the results, we’re playing very good football and we want to be.
After a spring filled with injuries, Madeleine Januji has been left out of the Swedish UEFA squad. A tough message to receive, but if there’s anything the 26-year-old has learned, it’s dealing with defeat.
I don’t like being in distress, but I can still feel calm in it. If I do the right things, I will convert. I would also be somewhat pleased that I have nothing to lose now. I fell, I was stressed, I broke my contract. Now damn it, now we’re driving, now we’re going. You are a fighter too. You shouldn’t be afraid of that.
And during the fall, she regained her place in the Swedish national team.
– This is where I want to be. I’m not satisfied with anything else, so I’m very happy and proud that I got back. That was the goal.
Januji was selected for the two post-UEFA national team groups and in the international training match against France, she immediately showed that it’s not just at home at the dinner table that she can draw. The striker managed to barely be on the field for more than three minutes before she scored her sixth goal for the national team of her career.
It was hard not to turn up but I worked incredibly hard so it’s a sign that I’ve done something well and handled it the right way because I’m here now and I have to play. It feels so good to me that I handled it the way I thought it best.
She is now looking forward to the end of the season. Hennes Hammarby has four matches left in the Women’s League, then Janouji’s contract expires.
She confirms that she is in talks with the club, but she is not in a hurry or will make any hasty decisions. If there’s one thing the striker takes with him after these tough years, it’s listening to his gut feeling.
– I will always do that. I would never do anything that I don’t feel inside of me. It will never happen again.
The 26-year-old had to learn the hard way that what seemed to many to be a dream could be a nightmare.
– Did you do that for me? No, I did it because people said this must be the best thing for me without them knowing.
You often come back to that gut feeling. Now too.
If she had trusted it, there would have been no move to Wolfsburg, because he didn’t feel good in her stomach.
– No you did not. I’m always good at listening to my intuition, but I didn’t and it didn’t look good either. So I won’t do that again. I know myself and I know what I need and I think it is important for everyone to dare to trust that. You dare feel the best for me.
Whether it is in Sweden or abroad is not of great importance to Madeleine Januji. Nowadays, she knows what is important when making her decision.
– Now I’m really enjoying myself and I feel good. I really want to keep going, to be injury free, to have fun and to keep improving. I have big goals with football and my dreams, but I think everything will come at the right time as long as you do the right things and do it one hundred percent.
– I want to win titles. I want to play in the Champions League and try to be as good as I can be.
