Tim Wiese has been a professional soccer goalie for 15 years. He's played for the German national team six times, once as a member of the World Cup squad in 2010, as well as a number of European football clubs, like Cologne, Werder Bremen and most recently Hoffenheim.
But lately his life, and his appearance, has taken a fairly dramatic turn.
Eurosport Yahoo! reports that after being released by Hoffenheim in 2013, despite having a contract that ran through 2016, Wiese began to lift weights ... and lift ... and lift ... and lift some more, until he had effectively transformed his body to the point where he could no longer physically play soccer.
Strange.
But what's stranger, and sadder, is the reasoning behind why Wiese began this transformation.
"I had to get all the Hoffenheim problems out of my head, and so I dealt with it this way," Wiese said, admitting that it was the jeering and abuse from Hoffenheim fans that led to his body change.
"I tried to break down all the negatives - I don't want to join a bodybuilding championship, I was just enjoying myself, having fun."
"When I came to Hoffenheim, we thought we could challenge for European places. Then everything backfired. And every time we lost, it seemed it was my fault; I was being analyzed and criticized, not the team. It was all about me. Despite my experience and confidence, I had never faced this before. It culminated in a fan protest at the club's office - a fan protest, just against me!
"There were only a few of these fans, but this made me feel deeply unwanted, and I would never wish this on another player. It was like being in a horror movie. The pressure was inhuman. I could not play freely."
As fans, we often take for granted how wonderful it must be to play soccer, or any other sport, for a living. But there are of course darker sides to this seemingly wonderful situation. And here, in the form of an outsized body wrapped around a clearly obsessive and somewhat fragile mind, we can see the toll that pressure can take on a person.
The possible silver lining to this story is that ProSoccerTalk is reporting that World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has reached out to Wiese with an offer to become a professional wrestler. Wiese is allegedly considering the offer fairly seriously.
