German football mourns death of goalkeeper Enke

HANOVER - Germany Wednesday called off a friendly international against Chile to mourn the death of national team goalkeeper Robert Enke who committed suicide Tuesday.

Enke, who had been treated for acute depression since 2003, feared he could lose both his adoptive daughter and his playing career if his illness became public, his widow Teresa said.

“He feared it would come out and we would lose Leila when you have a depressive father… the fear of what people think when you have an adoptive daughter and the papa is suffering from depression,” his widow Teresa said at an emotional news conference in Hanover.

The couple had lost their daughter Lara who died in 2006 of a rare heart condition when she was just two.

Teresa Enke said football was the “elixir of life” for her husband who did not want the public to become aware of his illness “out of fear of losing his sport and private life”.

The 32-year-old Hanover keeper and club captain was hit by a train at a railway crossing near his home Tuesday evening.

Enke’s depression came in phases when “he missed the drive and the hope that it would get better soon”, his wife said.

“We had a time after Istanbul and Barcelona (where Enke played) when we overcame it and took so much hope from what we could achieve. It brought us together after Lara’s death and we thought we could achieve everything, with love it would work … but you can’t achieve everything always.”

German football federation (DFB) president Theo Zwanziger told a news conference the Chilean football federation had agreed with his request to call off Saturday’s friendly in Cologne. The German squad had earlier called off a training session.

A church service was to be held Wednesday evening in Hanover for the city club’s keeper and captain. Black armbands will be worn and a minute’s silence held at Bundesdliga matches the following weekend.

Valentin Markser, the doctor who had been treating Enke for depression since 2003, said the goalkeeper left a note apologising for deliberately misleading those close to him over his plans to kill himself.

Markser said he had not thought there was an acute danger of suicide by Enke who on the day of his death had turned down the offer of being admitted to hospital for further treatment.

Enke had always distanced himself from “latent thoughts of suicide” but had hidden his real intentions, Markser said.

The doctor said he began treating Enke for “depression and fear of failure” daily for several months six years ago. The depression stabilised itself after a few months so that early in 2004 in Spain he was able to play on successfully.

Enke had recently been suffering from a bacterial infection which had forced him out of Germany’s last four matches. He had contacted Markser about six weeks ago “because together with the infection he was increasingly in crisis with depression”.

The keeper underwent intensive therapeutic treatment to stabilise the depression again so that he was able to return to training and to the Hanover team, playing the last two Bundesliga games.

Leading figures in the game expressed their shock and sorrow at news of Enke’s death.

“When you hear something like this all other problems become very small,” German playing legend Franz Beckenbauer said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a personal letter to Teresa Enke expressing her sorrow and sympathies to the family, a spokesman said.

Hundreds of fans gathered at Hanover’s AWD Arena Tuesday night to lay flowers and light candles for Enke and fans again queued outside the ground Wednesday to enter their names in a book of condolence next to an Enke goalkeeping jersey and candles. Many fans left flowers, team shirts and scarves.

Enke had emerged as Germany’s top goalkeeper late in his playing career. Although he had originally been called up for the national team for the Confederations Cup in 1999 he did not win the first of his eight caps until 2007.

He had been for many years something of a forgotten figure in German football, spending five years abroad - at Benfica, Barcelona, Fenerbahce and Tenerife - until returning to the Bundesliga with Hanover in 2004.

After an era dominated by the likes of goalkeepers Oliver Kahn and Jens Lehmann came to an end after Euro 2008, Enke’s time appeared to have finally come and he was regarded as first choice ahead of next year’s World Cup finals in South Africa.