Danilo would eventually go onto star with Manchester City and now with Juve.
But he recalled to The Players' Tribune: “During my first season at Real Madrid, I was depressed. I was lost, feeling useless. On the field, I couldn’t make a five-meter pass. Off the field, it was like I couldn’t even move,” the Juventus captain admitted.
“My passion for football disappeared, and I didn’t see a way out. I wanted to go back to my home in Brazil and never play football again.
“I wasn’t seeing myself as Baianinho, Baiano’s son (that’s what they call my dad). I was seeing myself as Danilo, the “31-million euro transfer” — the most expensive defender Real Madrid had ever bought at the time.
“When we played against Alavés a few months into the season, Theo Hernández stole the ball from me and crossed for Deyverson to score. We still won 4–1, but it was a mistake you can’t make at Real Madrid. I’ll never forget going home that night and not being able to sleep.
“I wrote in my journal: I think it’s time to quit football. I was 24 years old.”
He also said: “Which part of me was really feeling the pressure? The guy who had been a revelation as a right back at Porto? Or the boy from Bicas who suddenly signed with the biggest team in the world? The answer was clear. You will always be the boy inside.
“I didn’t tell anyone what I was feeling,” he continued.
“Casemiro tried to help me, but I “swallowed the frog,” as they say. And it kept getting bigger. But after a few months of suffering, I started seeing a psychologist, and he really saved my career. The most important lesson he taught me was to see the game through the eyes of a child again.
"When you play football as a child, you never think too much, right? Your body and mind are in sync. Basically: you don’t care if you make mistakes. You just play. Suddenly, I stopped seeing myself as Danilo, the 31-million-euro transfer.
"I started seeing myself as Danilo from Bicas, the boy who always locked my locker at América Mineiro because I kept a roll of toilet paper in there like it was ‘gold.’