“I saw no more sense in life”
Ex-national player reveals serious problems
10.06.2025 – 2:17 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Lina Magull celebrated many successes in her career, experienced the climax. But for the ex-international player, it was also steeply downhill.
Champions League victories, championships, DFB Cup victories, dozens of international matches: Lina Magull has achieved a lot at the age of 30. The ex-international is one of the best-known footballers in Germany. Her fans know her as a humorous and relaxed woman who laughs a lot away from the lawn. In the podcast “How are you?” With national player Robin Gosens and co-host Nils Straatmann, she has now released another side-and talked about her severe depression.
She experienced the first approaches of mental problems five years ago when she became captain at Bayern. “Suddenly everything felt so tight. Only by wearing the bandage did I no longer feel as free as the person I was,” she said now. “I have enlarged myself so much that I have to make it all around around it that we now have to advance women’s football even more that I have to make all players happy somehow.”
Her enormous sense of responsibility caused her problems. “Alone when I saw players who were down because they didn’t play, I always thought: ‘I have to go, I have to talk to them, then I have to talk to the coach.'” “
She volunteered the bandage in 2023. In the T-online interview, she said at the time: “The year was not easy for me. The season demanded a lot to me and the office was in a certain way for me.”
As she now reports in the podcast, her condition worsened when she played less with Bavaria and the DFB. “The whole pillars that I built up in my life somehow came out after the other.” This also had an impact on her private life, Magull was easier and also lost the joie de vivre. In January 2024 she moved to Italy to flee from the situation. But it only got worse because she felt lonely and missed her life in Munich.
She got sleep problems, suffered from panic attacks and could hardly drive a car. Then she also reached her personal low. “The thoughts are already so well -promoted that I saw no sense in life anymore. So, I wouldn’t have had any problem dying,” said Magull. “It was so bad for me because I am such a joyful person that I couldn’t see that I didn’t care if I had died.“
She then went to a private clinic, where she stayed for six weeks. “Then I’m out with so many great knowledge and great people that I met there.” One of these findings: “You have to talk to people about it who feel the same thing who know what it means to have a depression. They know how your body changes, your thoughts and just talk, talk, talk. That taught me so much and I’m really so happy that I did it.”