His goal against Crystal Palace is one of the best in the Premier League: receiving the ball, crossing above his own head, roundhouse kick from almost 20 meters. In 2016, 21-year-old Dele Alli was unstoppable, scoring goals as a midfielder and eclipsing even superstars like Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard.

At the latest, when Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochetino was kicked out, Alli could not go any further. His level of play dropped, after a while he stopped playing under José Mourinho, moved to Everton and finally to Turkey, to Besiktas in Istanbul.

During this time, he had a reputation for partying rather than playing football. Not completely unfounded, of course, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as Dele Alli tells in an interview with Gary Neville’s Overlapping YouTube format.

Mental health issues and pill addiction

The 27-year-old actor talks about the pressures he had to endure as a young superstar. How he could not cope with this, more and more often he was drawn to sleeping pills and, finally, used them during the day – as well as a lot of alcohol.

The interview offers an unusually deep look into a side of football that would otherwise be underreported. Dele Alli broke down under pressure and expectations and finally fell into a hole from which he himself could not get out. “I couldn’t open up to others,” Dele Alli tells Gary Neville, “I wanted to do it myself.”

Just three weeks ago, he completed his six-week stay at a rehab clinic in the US. There he realized that his actions and his psychological instability were due to childhood trauma.

Sexual abuse at age six

During the conversation, Dele tearfully reveals that when he was six years old, he was sexually abused in the home of his alcoholic mother by her friend. “After that, I was sent to my father in Africa to learn discipline there,” says Alli.

The opposite happened: Dele Alli started smoking at the age of seven, he was a drug dealer at eight, and at eleven he was thrown over the railing of a bridge by a man. Interviewer Neville is also visibly excited about Allie’s story. The young man’s life did not improve until he was twelve when he was adopted.

The hunger is back

Although Alli said he was among the “best people in the world”, the damage had already been done. Although the effect did not appear until he was twenty, his fall was deep. He learned to deal with it in rehab and is now mentally better than ever.

“If I can help someone with just this interview, that’s good for me,” Dele says. His hunger and love for football returned. Dele Alli is currently still injured but wants to attack again. If the head is in order, he can also succeed: his football talent was never discussed.