When top-level footballers discuss a period early in their careers that helped shape them, they usually talk about a loan spell or a surprise call-up. For Per Mertesacker, though, it came when he spent a year working part-time in a psychiatric hospital - an invaluable time that helped him “see the world in a different way”. “When I finished school, I had to serve the country either in the military or by doing a social year,” he told Arsenal Player. “I decided to do a social year while I was playing football, so the club had a few links with mental hospitals and I chose one of those and they offered that I can train in the morning and serve in the afternoon and help people out....
Full Story »