Danny Röhl relives personal struggle in heartfelt vow to Sheffield Wednesday man
Akin Famewo faces several months on the side lines at Sheffield Wednesday after sustaining an injury at Portsmouth last month. Owls manager Danny Röhl has leaned on personal experience to ensure he’s supported through his recovery.
There’s a moment before football matches that Akin Famewo takes for himself. Away from home, it comes when Sheffield Wednesday are undertaking their pre-game wander out on the pitch, while teammates share a chuckling chinwag and take a photo or two for their Instagram. Every individual will have their own routine; what works, works.
Famewo, headphones on, eyes steely, will break away from the larger group to take a stroll. He stands motionless for a moment in his ‘channel’, visualising the defensive responsibilities he’ll have to undertake when the match begins. He’ll walk up a little further, imagining the passes available to him with the ball at feet. He’ll do it at both ends of the field. Then he’s ready - and he re-joins the group.
It’s a fascinating ritual to witness and is no unusual practice in elite sport. Those early into Portsmouth’s Fratton Park stadium on October 25 may well have witnessed Famewo’s prolonged and deliberate mental preparations for battle, which ended some minutes after some of his colleagues had seen enough and had returned to the changing room. What the 26-year-old won’t have visualised was the first-half injury that ended some of the best form of his career.
After so-so periods in the heart of a back four and a less successful fire-fighting mission as a stand-in left-back, it is on the left of a back three that Famewo seemed to be making a home for himself, his status as a left footer effective in possession and his natural reading of the game standing him up perhaps as an contender for Wednesday’s best and most consistent player in these early stages of the campaign.
So much more of a wrench it was, then, when his 29th-minute pull-up delivered immediate concerns over a long-term absence. A few weeks on, The Star understands a return from his serious quadricep issue is hoped for anywhere between three and five months. It’s a scenario known to Röhl, who retired in his early 20s having undertaken eight different surgeries between the ages of 16 and 18. The German coach is on hand to help Famewo through.
“I met him in my office,” Röhl said. “We spoke about his feeling and I tried to give him hope. Although I didn't play at such a high level, I had a lot of injuries and I know what it means. He was in good shape and was performing well and that makes it harder, but he was very positive. He says he will come back stronger, he will fight and he will do everything.
“This injury takes time, you can never say how quick it goes and for the mindset with a muscle injury at the beginning you can be a little bit scared that it happens again. If it is a broken leg or something when it is fixed you start again and can keep going, but normally you worry it (a muscle injury) can happen again. This is normal, but we will support him, I will support him.”
Famewo hired out all-weather football pitches in the summer to ensure he was as primed as possible for the current season, realising the demands of a Röhl side were for constant intensity. He’s a player who has suffered experience with injury before of course, but this time will no doubt come as a real heartbreaker for the former Norwich City man, who has started their last eight league matches.
Röhl continued: “He is always part of our team and I think now it is about the treatments and maybe that some times he goes to a different place and makes some good times away from here, for the mindset and when he comes back again. We will build him up, I trust my medical team. We will help him on the mental side.”
Akin Famewo stood alone away from his teammates at Fratton Park as part of his pre-match preparation. Efforts are being made to ensure there is no danger of him feeling alone as he sets off on the road back to fitness.