In an interview with Belgian news outlet Het Laatste Nieuws, Inter owned midfielder Radja Nainggolan has shared his disappointment that his mother, who died in 2010, never got to see him perform on the international stage or meet his daughters.
“The worst part is that she never saw me play football with the Belgian national team. She would have been very proud of me. She didn’t get to meet my two daughters either,” he explained.
“I often tell Aysha about my mother. I want her to know who she was and what she meant to me. She was only 55 when she died. She was so young. Anyway, c’est la vie, right? It’s something you just have to deal with.”
He then spoke on his father abandoning his family.
“He returned to Indonesia without leaving an address. What he left behind was a mountain of debt, which got us into trouble. I was too angry to go find him. I’ve never missed him.”
Nainggolan proceeded to recall his actions when he was offered €1400 a month by Piacenza, who were in Serie B at the time.
“That was tons of money for me. Now it doesn’t sound like much, but when I got that contract, I immediately said that I was leaving Belgium as I wanted to help my family. I gave to them what I could afford.
“At the beginning I was very homesick and after six months I wanted to return home but my older brother told me, ‘If you dare come back, I’ll break your legs.'”
Nainggolan then reflected on his career as a whole.
“I think I have had a fantastic journey. I am proud of myself because I did it in small steps and with a lot of hard work.
“I was never a child prodigy and I wasn’t appreciated much or one of those you had to keep an eye on. I never played for Standard Liege or Anderlecht and instead I took a different path to footballers who were great talents from an early age.
“I learned a lot from the path I’ve been on, there is more to life than football, I know that better than anyone else.”
Nainggolan joined Inter in the Summer of 2018 from fellow Serie A side Roma. He has made 36 appearances across all competitions to date for the club, in which he has scored seven goals and tallied three assists.
This past Summer he was judged to be out of Inter’s project by club management and was subsequently sent out on loan to Cagliari, where he has scored five goals and tallied six assists in 24 appearances.
