Jonas Thern was the one who took Igor Sibnyowsky under his wing.
So the news of Sypniewski’s death came as a blow.
– I got close to him, says Thern.
Igor Sibnyowski took over Swedish football when he joined Halmstad BK in the spring of 2003 and scored nine goals in his first thirteen matches.
The talent on the football field was never in doubt. It was the problems on the sidelines that meant Sypniewski never became the world class player he had the potential to be.
For HBK coach at the time Jonas Thern It soon became clear that the new Polish acquisition needed more care.
– I spent a lot of time trying to make him feel comfortable and feel comfortable. It could be about meeting and drinking coffee together, driving him in the car and sitting there and above all listening. That’s what he missed so many times, I think, to have someone to listen, says Turn.
Stay in touch
Sypniewski’s stay in Halmstad BK was short-lived; The following year it was sold to Malmö FF at which point he and Jonas Thern parted.
But they kept in touch.
Several years later, Sypniewski still calls Thern his “greatest friend” and it becomes clear that Thern has made a huge mark in his role as a kind of extra dad.
But Sypniewski never got rid of his demons. In 2014, he released an autobiography in which he spoke candidly about his difficult life marked by depression and alcohol abuse.
Jonas Thern did his best to help, but as he himself said:
– Igor was a person who needed care more than people who had time to give it to him.
The news of the death of Igor Sibnyusky came as a shock.
It was hard to read, says Thern.
Given his fears, there was always a much greater danger that he would go to Hell. But yes, it was heavy.
“to fail”
Thern highlights the importance of taking mental illness seriously, not only in football but in society as a whole.
A lot seems to have happened in recent years. When you sit down and watch the news these days, you rarely feel really happy, and rarely is it positive news. There is still a lot to do and that applies to football as well. Especially with Igor, it feels like a failure. A few years ago he visited us on a training course in Varnamo, not long after that I read that he was imprisoned at his home in Poland because he was part of some rebellion. I saw pictures of him walking with big chains between his feet. The kind you saw in old movies. At first they didn’t think that was true The where He was the soccer player you took care of yourself and worked with once. Of course, one has a responsibility, but I think in general that anxious people, they need to get help. You don’t discover it on your own. And there I can think that with all the money out there, in society and in football, there has to be some way to better help the people who really need help. Because there will be fewer problems with mental illness, gambling, drug addiction and alcohol abuse in the future.
