Vincent Kompany has just returned home from hospital. The Bayern coach admitted he didn't listen to his body, "and then at some point, my body just said: 'Enough'."
Drejtori sportiv i Bayernit, Max Eberl, i cili u largua nga Monchengladbachu në vitin 2022 për shkak të problemeve të tij shëndetësore, i tha transmetuesit publik gjerman ARD se belgu 40-vjeçar vuante nga irritim meningjital, i cili nëse nuk trajtohet mund të shndërrohet në meningjit.
"They found out what it is. It's a meningeal irritation that caused the incident last Friday," Eberl said, referring to the moment Kompany collapsed during training and required an emergency doctor.
"Honestly, he's doing as well as can be expected. He's been released from the hospital, which is the biggest and best news for all of us."
The news has been met with great concern by the German football community. Bayern fans held up a banner showing their support, many German media outlets wrote opinion pieces, gently reminding that coaches are people too and need support. The wider coaching community has also started to ask questions.
"It's something you take to heart and think about," Freiburg coach Julian Schuster said after his team lost to Bayern recently.
"We coaches aren't always very good at taking care of ourselves in situations like this."
However, Eberl rejected the suggestion that this was related to pressure or stress.
"It's a disease. Any of us can get it. It has nothing to do with the pressure we face in the Bundesliga," Eberl said.
Why do coaches push themselves so hard?
However, with Kompany admitting he hadn't listened to his body and his assistant coach Aaron Danks saying that "resting Vincent is a challenge", it's clear the Belgian had been working hard recently.
Kompany, whose father became mayor of Belgium after moving there from the Democratic Republic of Congo, has faced a huge amount of hardship in his life. When he was 14, his parents divorced, and he spoke to The Guardian in 2019. “I need to be fed all the time, otherwise I don’t know how to function. I don’t remember a quiet Sunday.”
The Belgian's history, both in his childhood and as a former professional player, also plays a role in understanding the challenges faced by coaches in elite sport.
"I think we coaches have a very poor self-assessment of ourselves, like, I wasn't listening to my body. I think a lot of coaches are very poor in that regard," coach advisor Cody Royle, who has worked with teams in the NBA and Premier League, told DW.
"And so, part of my role is to increase their adaptation to this, to ask questions about this, to try to maybe even share some things that I've learned along the way or heard from others or other coaches who are going through similar things, so that you can start to put words to that feeling that may have been or where maybe you've touched on fatigue but haven't quite gotten there and be able to salvage something and start to really develop skills within it," he said.
"I think with Vincent's example we have to also consider the fact that this is a young guy who is still finding his way in training and so he is still figuring out what those triggers are inside his body and what they are actually telling him. Maybe he had physical things that he could read when he was playing. These are more mental triggers, and he is still learning them and that is part of what he has to do. But he has to have people around him to help him."
Coaches need more support
This raises the question, in 2026, at a time when awareness around mental and physical health is greater than ever, especially in elite sport, how is this still possible?
"I suspect that many head coaches are not able to step aside or delegate responsibilities," Frank Wormuth, an educator for the German Football Association, told DW.
"They want to control everything because they don't feel safe when the team loses," Wormuth continued, adding that this is why coaches often bring close friends onto their staff.
"You would think that professional coaches wouldn't have to worry, as they've earned enough money, but that's not the priority of a good coach - success is much more important."
A former coach, Wormuth admits there were moments in his career when he forgot the big role football played in his life.
"I never felt like I was doing much until my kids stressed me out when I was at home unemployed, but I had to fulfill the role of a father," Wormuth said.
"That's when I realized that in my head I was really acting 24/7 as a coach, even when I was at home."
Royle believes that coaches need to learn more about how to manage themselves.
"I'm a little disappointed that we didn't go further," Royle said.
"We're not even trying to teach this to our new coaches as they come forward. The education system probably facilitates this as much as organizations that are individually responsible."
Will there be a change in training?
It is clear that, if not managed well, the extremely demanding environments of elite sports with high expectations of individuals constitute a dangerous combination. Both Wormuth and Royle support the concept of a second pair of eyes.
"Maybe it's that there's now a mechanism for coaches to really investigate," Royle said.
Having someone who is outside the organization and not involved in politics, who whether on the phone or coming to visit simply says 'you need to go home because this is not going well'.
"This is a duel where Jock Stein literally dropped dead on the sidelines, right? There shouldn't be any more talk beyond that... and it was workaholism and stress that caused this," Royle added. "I don't know what else it's going to take, but I just don't think the game cares enough to change anything about it. The show must go on, right?"
Even as Bayern take on Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga's biggest game this weekend, Kompany's absence will serve as a reminder that, while much of the focus of modern sport is on the players, there is an equal level of care and support for those on the bench.