It is sometimes easy to lose faith in modern football – with its greed, lurid headlines and biting – but every now and then there is a gentle reminder of why we love the game and the joy it can bring. Last week, in Sweden, Andreas Engstrom came on as a substitute to take a penalty in Ulvsby IF’s sixth division game against Backhammar. His side were already 5-0 up yet he was terribly nervous. Why? He suffers from Leber’s disease and has only 1% of his eyesight left.
Six years ago, Engstrom had two main interests in life: driving cars and playing football. Then he developed the hereditary disease and within two months he had lost most of his eyesight. He had to give up driving – but he refused to give up football. “I was working as a train-ticket inspector when I noticed that my eyesight was getting worse and that I was struggling to do my job,” he explained to local paper NWT last week. “It was only going in one direction and everything happened quickly. After several visits to the hospital I was told that I could have developed a rare eye disease. My dad came to the next appointment and it was then that I was told that I had the incurable disease.”
Most people would have gone home after such a devastating blow. Engstrom, however, went to his club, trained and then explained to his team-mates what had happened. Since then he has worked tirelessly for the club. He fulfills so many roles there: statistician, web editor and team leader among other things. And then, last week, player.
Engstrom and his team-mates had had a plan for a long time, which included him coming on late in a game if the game was already won and Ulvsby got a penalty. And finally it happened.
“As always we were struggling for players,” he says. “So I put myself as a substitute and the lads promised that they would get a penalty and that I would take it. In the middle of the second half one of the players [Johan Hansen] came to me and said he’d got a penalty. ‘Get the shirt on and take it,’ he told me.
“I got really nervous. One of the guys put the ball on the penalty spot but I went up and touched the ball to know exactly where it was. I could, somewhere, see a little bit of the posts and I aimed for the right post. The feeling was that I missed and that it went straight on, but then I heard the lads cheer.”
The Backhammar goalkeeper went to the left and the ball to the right. “Afterwards the guys asked how I could be so cool to wait for the goalkeeper to make his move before I shot. I didn’t have a clue I did that.”
The match finished 6-1 and the penalty has become a media sensation in Sweden. Engstrom, however, is more focused on getting enough players for the club’s next game. “We have used a total of 63 players for 17 games this season. I have had to beg friends and former players to come and help us out,” he said.
Engstrom also praised his partner, Jennie, for her support. “She obviously means a lot to me. She is not interested in football but she’s had to listen to me a lot this season. I’ve mainly been on the phone trying to get players for games. At one point she told me she had dreamt about football.”
The opposing goalkeeper, Mattias Frisell, told Sportbladet that “he would probably get some stick for conceding a goal from a player who cannot see”, and revealed that he had not known that Engstrom was blind when he lined up in an attempt to save the penalty. “If I’d known I would have gone up and given him a pat and the shoulder and said: ‘Well done.’”
Perhaps the biggest pleasure was saved for Engstrom’s father, Gosta, who has been a huge support to Andreas. “I told him on the phone that I didn’t score this time either but then, in the evening, I got the video out and showed him. He started to cry. Both he and my mum know how much I want to play football ‘for real’. It was emotional.”
© Guardian News & Media Limited 2014
