It's not easy being Harry Maguire. It is not easy to enter a playing field wearing your country's shirt, after being practically separated from your team, and have 50,000 spectators laugh at you and say 'oles' every time you touch the ball. It's not easy to know that you are a joke, a "meme" for fans. It's not easy, but no one does anything to fix it.
In a country where football fields are papered by posters urging people to report abuse and which has become a banner for the fight against racism, Maguire seems to be alone in his own fray. It has become a national sport to laugh at him and take his every action on the field as a joke, to the point that it seems that bad luck is following him and if something has to go wrong, it will go wrong.
They have been the most difficult months for the career of the English centre-back, who lost the captaincy at Manchester United and was invited to leave, having to stay at the last minute due to the club's defense losses. He is still trapped in a club that paid more than 80 million for him, where he did not meet expectations and where they do not want him, and where he has barely played 23 minutes this season.
The only one who trusts him seems to be Gareth Southgate, who despite his inactivity at United, called him up, under criticism, for the Ukraine and Scotland matches and started him in one and gave him a half part in another. Southgate, in one of his most passionate speeches since he coached this team, has been one of the few or the only one to really speak out and defend the centre-back.
"I have never seen a player treated like this," Southgate said at a press conference. "He is a banner for us in one of the most successful Englands in decades. He has been a key and crucial part of that. Every time he takes the field, the resilience he shows is incredible. We are all with him."
"I understand what the Scottish fans have done, but it is a consequence of the ridiculous treatment that has been given to them for a long time. It is a joke, by our commentators, our pundits or whoever. They have created something far above anything else something I've ever seen," he said.
"Even our fans noticed when they said something like 'we may be going too far, but we're not going to let the rivals mess with him'," added Southgate, who also praised Maguire's character, who despite all the controversies, he has always tried to show his face.
Because the easy thing for Maguire would have been to collapse, not appear again, avoid the conflict. In a country that claims to take mental health as it deserves, Maguire is day after day, on social networks and in public, ridiculed to the maximum and does not receive any kind of help.
But when there is another case like that of Dele Alli, whose childhood traumas, a victim of sexual abuse, and his addictions to sleeping pills were overcome by pressure, then England will once again worry about the mental health of the players and the problems they have to face. Meanwhile, Maguire will continue to be the subject of national laughter. And nothing will happen here.
