MONTREAL — Divining positives from the darkness and disappointment of Stade Saputo wasn’t the easiest task, even for a relentless light-seeker like Jesse Marsch.
As the temperatures dropped on Thanksgiving Friday night, the Canadian men’s soccer team had got cold, too, and surrendered a first home defeat of the American’s tenure. But in the post-match press conference, the utterance of just two words was enough to raise the lumens in Marsch’s eyes: Liam Millar.
With the red LED stadium clocks ticking up to 77 minutes and visitor Australia 1-0 up, the Hull City winger trotted in off the sidelines for his 36th cap but first appearance in country colours for 12 long months. It was another of what Millar calls “these tiny little milestones” and it could have been a bigger one had fellow substitute Jacob Shaffelburg converted Millar’s superb late delivery, which was begging to be buried.
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Instead, the scoreline stayed as it was and the record books recorded a loss. But it was a win, too — for Millar and for his family. If night had closed in by the time he made his return around 9.30 p.m., it was edging closer to dawn for Daniela Millar, watching from across the ocean in Hull on England’s northeast coast. “We’re back baby,” she captioned her Instagram story as her husband’s appearance on the laptop screen in front of her lit up more blackness.
Lights and tunnels are much too tired of clichés for what the Millars have traversed this past year as Liam recovered from an ACL injury which changed the pace of their lives entirely. This past week, as he returned to national duty, Millar revealed in interviews that he had suffered from depression when his rehab slowed. A slickly produced video for Canada Soccer social channels charted “le long parcours de Liam Millar nous mène à ce moment.”
It had indeed been a long road to this moment. In a sit-down with the Star, Millar revealed the unique perspective of his wife, and the crucial part that played in helping him confront and then overcome what he described as his “dizziness.”
Before she was Daniela Millar she was Daniela Paniccia, No. 34 and starting goalkeeper for the Penn State Nittany Lions women’s hockey team. Between October 2016 to October 2017, Paniccia was named College Hockey America’s goalie of the week five times and goalie of the month twice. Elite and likely on a path to bigger things. Until a whole other kind of dizziness came calling for her first.
“She had a very similar situation to me. She actually had to stop playing. Had no choice in it,” Millar told the Star. “She had too many concussions — I believe it was seven — and they told her that if she had one more she would likely have brain damage. So she had to hang up her skates.
“She’s been through the whole injury thing, being told she can’t play what she loved anymore. So she understood the whole sadness, maybe being a little lost. She understood and was there for me. And like I have said (this week) there was that period where I was dizzy. I didn’t know what was going on, I have no idea. I can’t remember a single day except for the one day where I finally talked to her about it. Every other day? Can’t remember it.”
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Millar tried to explain his depression journey by pointing to an overly ornate light fixture hanging above the empty bar on the mezzanine floor of the Montreal Westin.
“Everything I was looking at was moving. I could look at this lamp and it was moving. I couldn’t get my head around any of it,” he said. “I couldn’t get off my phone. I was glued to my phone because it was the only thing that was distracting me from the dizziness. So I just went completely in my own shell.
“Someone else could have got mad, got tired, at what I was going through. But Daniela never was. She knew I wasn’t (OK), yet still knew she had to give me that space to finally open up and tell her. If she had pressured me to talk about it, I probably wouldn’t have.
“It’s that one day I remember clearly. My daughter used to do performing arts and I remember we were driving back from class and I just started crying in the car and told Daniela: ‘I’m not OK, there’s something severely wrong.’ I had put on this persona of an overly positive person. Nothing can affect me. I didn’t want anyone to see this most vulnerable side, my wife included, and she’s been my friend since I was 10 years old. Until that day I said ‘I’m not OK’ I wasn’t OK. Then it was fixed.”
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True to every middle-child stereotype, Millar had downplayed things and maybe still does a little. The psychological recovery also involved his Edmonton-based mental performance coach. Marsch played a crucial role, too. The kind of all-in, human-first intervention that has become a common theme of his Canada tenure. The coach insisted this past week he knows no other way. But his players are aware this is above and beyond and certainly not the norm.
“I can’t describe enough how much I respect him. What he’s done for me in terms of making sure I get the best surgeon for my knee, checking up on me so much during my rehab. It’s also how great a person he is,” added Millar, who spent part of his rehab at the Marsch home in Tuscany with Daniela and daughters Reina and Valencia. “As you know I went to his house and how great he was with my kids, all of these little things, how much he cares about not just me but my wife and children. He’s a fantastic coach as well. I’ll never forget what he’s done for me. I think repay is technically the right word, because I do want to repay him for everything he’s done.”
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Millar’s teammates are as glad to have him back as his coach. He’s the leader of the mystery card game Mafia, which seems to be a highlight of every camp for those in the middle of it. He can contribute plenty on the field, too, that creative cameo just another reminder. With the World Cup eight months away, he is adamant he’s returning a sharper player, more explosive and more confident in the kind of winger he wants to be.
The injury forced Millar off the hamster wheel and for all the troubles that came with being stationary, the positives far outweigh all of it.
“You learn different things about yourself, you learn more about your children. I think the biggest blessing I ever had was that — being able to stay home and spend more time with my children and more time with my wife. Sometimes you get so consumed by football in your life and you think … that’s all you are. And then you’re around your family for this time and you realize you’re just a husband and just a dad. My kids don’t care at all if I play football or don’t. They care that I’m their dad. My wife cares that I’m her husband. That’s something I had to realize.”
A timely realization in many ways. The reason Daniela was watching his return from afar being one.
“My wife is heavily pregnant. There’s no stopping us!” laughs Millar as he gets ready for a third child weeks after turning 26. “Daniela’s 35 weeks pregnant and can’t make this trip. She’s due early November but has been early with the other two, so I reckon she’ll be early. I think I’ve timed it well between the international windows. I mean once you’ve had two, what’s three?”
