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Jeremie Aliadiere didn't know he had played his final game. He did not have that one moment when he walked off the pitch knowing that a career of rich promise had reached its end. Instead came a lengthy coda, a wait to see what might emerge followed by the eventual realisation that he was a professional footballer no more.

Everything his life had been building towards since the age of six was over - but no-one had warned him it was coming.

On May 20, 2017 Aliadiere was substituted an hour into what would be his swansong, a 1-1 draw for Lorient against Bordeaux that sent them into the Ligue 1 relegation playoff by just a point. They would lose that and, having slipped into the second tier of French football, would have to allow some players to move on as they built around young players including one Matteo Guendouzi.

Aliadiere was among them.

(Image: JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD/AFP/Getty Images)

With his children having started school in London Aliadiere, like any parent, was anxious to not disturb his family in its formative years. The lure of America, Qatar or Turkey, once so intriguing to him in 20s, was no longer as strong.

That game didn't feel like a finale for Aliadiere, who had turned 34 only two months before.

Though he understood he was no longer at the peak of his powers he also saw no reason why he could not offer clubs in the Championship or League One the benefits of his service. Four more years, then he could think about what happens next.

"I ended up back in London, waiting, waiting, phone ringing but not really places I wanted to go, training because you always think 'I'm still going to get something'," he tells football.london. "Slowly, slowly, maybe after six months you realise this might be finished, it might not happen anymore.

"Then the transfer window reopens, a few agents call you and ask if you'd be interested in this or that. You get your hopes up again. Nothing comes of it.

"You start thinking 'I've got to do something else, I've got all this time on my hands'. Then the second week without a thing to do - the freedom is nice but the day is long.

"You start feeling depressed. 'What am I doing?' I used to get up every morning to train, enjoy it every day, enjoy the environment, the dressing room, the jokes.

"Suddenly there's nothing.

"My kids and my wife, their lives still go on. Your whole life ends, basically."

With the exception of his spouse Aliadiere did not speak to anyone about his emotional troubles. He did not know where to turn for help.

Most significantly of all, he was facing a question far beyond those the best part of two decades in professional football prepares you to answer. What to do when it all ends?

Aliadiere has 40, 50, maybe more years ahead of him but everything he had been building up to is suddenly being talked about in the past tense.

"All you've wanted since you were a kid is to be a football professional, to be on that pitch. There's nothing else you've ever wanted.

"Suddenly you've got to want something else that you've never thought of. When you don't know what you want, what are you supposed to ask for help for? That's the difficult thing.

"You've never had to worry about big things, you worried about having a bad game, working hard to not get dropped. Just football stuff. You've never had to think about who you are.

"There's you the human and you the football player. The football player was me since six. Then at 34 you ask, what kind of person am I?

"I've never thought about what I enjoy doing beyond football. All I've had in my mind is playing football."

Though some drift to the dugout, the training ground or the bright lights of the television studio, retirement can be tough on those who still crave the ecstasy of being on the winning team but don't know where to go to find it.

"If I didn't have my kids and wife I'd probably be in the worst, worst place," Aliadiere explains.

"You hear of a lot of footballers who lose the plot when they retire, who blow their money on gambling, drink, drugs. You need to find something to give you the same importance, the same adrenaline as when you were playing.

(Image: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

"You have to find it somehow. The highs you get on the pitch, when you score, when you win, you ain't getting that in life.

"When you've been used to that for 20 years or however long your career is suddenly you've just got to find a way to get that feeling back."

A guiding light

The months since he has retired have given Aliadiere a new found perspective on who he can rely on. During his playing career he would rarely be short of people to give him advice, to aid him on his journey. Some of those had his best intentions at heart. Others did not.

Of course he never doubted that he would have the support of Arsene Wenger, the man who thrust him into the professional game as a youngster and continues to offer his support to this day.

Aliadiere speaks of his former manager with reverence earned not through his success on the pitch but through his actions off it, in particular a period of several months in 2011 when he allowed his former striker to return to London Colney as part of his rehabilitation from a cruciate ligament injury.

(Image: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

In the 2010-11 pre-season Aliadiere was on the search for a new club after Middlesbrough, with whom he had been relegated to the Championship, told him they could not afford to activate an extension on a contract they had agreed to when they were a top flight club.

Despite having struggled for goals at the Riverside the free agent was not short on suitors, though one stood out above all others.

"When West Ham were interested I thought this was brilliant. I went there, did my medical and everything was fine then suddenly, for whatever reason, they said they wanted me to train with them because they saw something on the MRI scan, a little injury on my ankle.

"I'd never had that identified before. I said okay, it wasn't a problem and I was fit enough. I trained and I got injured on my cruciate ligament.

"No insurance. I didn't sign any document. I hadn't been told that. That agent never told me.

"All West Ham did was say if I needed an operation or medical care they'd take care of it. Obviously I couldn't sign the contract. I had no club.

"It was really scary. At that time - I was 27 - that felt like the end of my career. I won't play for a year. Who's going to take me after that? Nobody knows what sort of rehab I'm going to get. I was sure it was over.

"For a couple of weeks I didn't move from my sofa, I was a zombie, really depressed."

With the support of a physio at former club Middlesbrough Aliadiere dragged himself out of his despair and began his recuperation. By the following January his recovery was such that LA Galaxy were prepared to take him on board.

In a moment of doubt Aliadiere turned to the one man in football he trusted above all others.

"Arsene said: 'Listen, forget about this season, just come to us, train with us, get back fit. This is your home. I'll see you tomorrow at 9am.' That was it.

"You don't get that from many people, not just in football. When you work with someone you work with them and then eventually you go your separate ways. But Arsene… to help someone three, four years after they've left the club, I'll always be grateful for him."

Wenger's door remains open to Aliadiere. After a game against Everton in the 2017-18 season the Arsenal boss told him to meet him in his office after he had completed his matchday duties. For four hours they set the world to rights as they watched more and more football, reminiscing over their time in England.

First steps

In Aliadiere's case that had begun as a timid 16-year-old living with his grandparents in Southgate.

Wenger and scout Steve Rowley had travelled to Scotland where they saw him light up a youth tournament. A week later the phone call came through to the Aliadiere household. The boy who had grown up worshipping Nicolas Anelka and Thierry Henry would be following in their footsteps.

(Image: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Aliadiere did not speak a word of English and the prospect of living in digs with an English family was not one that excited him. Nor, eventually, was having his elderly family cramping his style.

"After a couple of months living with your grandparents when you're 16, earning a bit of money, all you want to do is buy trainers and clothes but your grandad is in your ear saying 'don't spend your money. Don't do this'.

"At Christmas we got a couple of weeks off, we all went back to France. Then they decided they were too old to leave and settle in London and they couldn't come back.

"So I was 16, living on my own in a five-bedroom house in Southgate. What do I do? Do I tell Arsenal my grandparents aren't coming back? They'd put me in digs. Or do I not say anything and keep my mouth shut until they catch me? I still don't think Arsene knows!"

By the summer another French youngster, Guy Demel, would join him in the mansion, a crashpad that most teenagers can only dream of. Off the field things were looking up.

As a young French striker at Arsenal expectations were high, after all the Gunners had plucked him from the prestigious Clairefontaine academy in a move that caused great furore at the time.

There were great moments - an exceptional display in a 6-3 win over Liverpool at Anfield in 2007, indeed the entirety of the run to the League Cup final that year - but with Premier League greats such as Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Nwankwo Kanu, Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor ahead of him in the pecking order a consistent run of games was hard to come by.

(Image: PAUL BARKER/AFP/Getty Images)

No-one around the club ever doubted Aliadiere's natural talent but there was something that didn't quite click for him.

"If I had my time again I'd do the same thing as a kid, for the first year and a half as an Academy player. But I wish when I'd got to the first-team I'd believed in myself, that I deserved a place in that squad with those players.

"I've always underestimated myself, thinking I'm not good enough. I always felt I played safe, one or two touches and move. I didn't take the ball, try to take on players.

"I thought if I try to do that and lose the ball Patrick, Thierry or Dennis are going to shout at me. Around Martin, Tony, all those guys I felt shy and scared of those big characters. I was 17, skinny, not a fully-developed footballer.

"I remember when I was with the Academy and Neil [Banfield] used to say 'Jez, you're with the first team today' I thought 'I don't want to. I'm scared. I don't feel ready.'

"That's why you see boys like Cristiano and Wayne Rooney performing so young, because they're not scared of anything. If I'd have had more of that maybe I'd have had a better career at Arsenal and done better elsewhere."

Not that his career ought to be defined by regrets. Aliadiere is an Invincible, and how many others can say that?

What comes next

Best of all, he is back at the club he so loves, an increasingly familiar presence in the Emirates press room as he works for Arsenal's media channel. It can't quite replicate the buzz of Saturday, 3 o'clock when you're actually playing, but as approximations go it's not too bad.

"I still have days and weeks where there's no phone call, where I feel bored," he says. "But it's getting rarer and rarer, there's more things going on. Following the club, following every game, I feel involved again.

"It's a long road though, in my mind there's still a little part of me that thinks I should still be playing. When they do those charity matches I'm still running a lot, scoring goals and there's people telling me I could still do a job in the Championship.

"That's when you have a week or so where you just miss it. It's gone now. It's really gone. I wish I could still play. But you know you can't get it back. You have to switch your brain and move on.

"I'm not old enough to really put it to bed. I don't think I'm a pundit, a media person, whatever. I think of myself as a football player. As time goes by it's easing but it'll be a while before it goes for good."

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can get in touch with the Campaign Against Living Miserably. CALM's free, anonymous and confidential helpline and webchat are open every day, 5pm-midnight. For more information and support visit thecalmzone.net. Samaritans can also be contacted 24/7 by calling 116 123.

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