The legendary Welsh coach John Benjamin Toshack is going through a difficult personal time after it was revealed that he is suffering from dementia, a disease that progressively affects memory and cognitive abilities. The news has come to light through his son, Cameron Toshack, who explained in an interview with the Daily Mail what the day-to-day life of the former coach is like. According to Cameron, the main deterioration is occurring in short-term memory: he can have a conversation in the morning and not remember having it hours later.
If we talk in the afternoon, you may not remember that we also talked in the morning
Despite this, there is a striking contrast. Toshack retains an enormous precision of memories linked to football, especially from his time as a player at Liverpool or as a coach at teams such as Real Madrid. His son stresses that he is still able to analyse matches from the past in great tactical detail, as if he had experienced them recently.
“If I ask him about his days in Liverpool, San Sebastian or Madrid, the details are amazing. The other day he told me about a Real Madrid match against Sacchi’s Milan and how he modified his midfield to deal with Marco van Basten. It’s as if the match was yesterday,” he explained.
The other day he told me about a Real Madrid match against Sacchi’s Milan and how he modified his midfield to deal with Van Basten
“It’s a terrible disease. We see it in the short-term memory: I talk to him almost every day and if we talk in the afternoon, he may not remember that we also talked in the morning,” added Cameron, who also points out that his father alternates better days with more complicated ones in this battle.
Toshack, 77, left a deep mark on European soccer. As a player, he was one of the key players in Liverpool’s 1970s side, with whom he won multiple titles, and later developed an extensive career in the dugout, coaching clubs such as Real Madrid and Real Sociedad, as well as the Welsh national team.
The news is sure to provoke numerous reactions in the football world, where his figure is still highly respected. Today, far from the spotlight and the dugout, Toshack is facing the toughest match of his life.
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