Liverpool's newest addition made brave admission amid ongoing mental health battle

Liverpool are making a shock move to sign FC Barcelona defender Ronald Araujo on a season-long loan, months after the Uruguayan bravely discussed his mental health struggles

Ronald Araujo is set to join Liverpool — and the Barcelona defender has shown his class with his mentality both on and off the pitch.

On Friday, news broke that Liverpool was moving to sign Araujo on a season-long loan. The Uruguayan can play center-back and right-back, which means he is a crucial solution to the Reds’ ongoing injury crisis.

Andoni Iraola is currently without Joe Gomez through injury after he limped off during pre-season, with it being later revealed that he will miss around a month of action and therefore the start of the new campaign. Giovanni Leoni is still working his way back from an ACL injury, and Conor Bradley could be sidelined for another while yet.

In news broken by Fabrizio Romano, Liverpool has therefore swooped in for Araujo. The 27-year-old made 24 appearances in La Liga last season as Barcelona clinched the title.

Araujo represents an experienced head at the back and would increase the number of options available to Iraola in a crucial part of the field. He is also a passionate mental health advocate who has bravely spoken of his struggles.

Back in November 2025, Barcelona were 1-0 down at Chelsea in the Champions League when Araujo was sent off moments before halftime for a second bookable offense. The moment proved to be a turning point.

“Going in like that, knowing I’d already been booked… I knew something wasn’t right,” Araujo told The Athletic. “But I found it really hard to let it out. Even with my wife, who’s closest to me, it was very difficult to talk about it. I struggled to speak. I always kept everything to myself. After that moment, I said: ‘That’s it. I need to talk about what’s happening to me.’

“I made the decision (to step away) because I really wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t being myself as a player. I know what I’m capable of. I know my potential. I hadn’t been feeling well off the pitch for a long time, and that had an impact on my performance.

“Sometimes things pile up. Not just about football, but things you might have experienced in childhood that build up and cause a lot of problems. I needed help from professionals to have the tools to find myself again.”

Araujo’s anxiety led to depression, and he took a leave of absence from Barcelona duties. The club did not specify the reasons why, and nor did they put a time on when he would be back.

He returned to the pitch in January, and Araujo found himself in a much better place ahead of the World Cup. He added: “I’m going to tell you something that might come as a surprise. Even though I haven’t played that many minutes, this has been the season I’ve learned the most.

“I’ve grown a lot mentally. I’ve learned to be a better husband, a better father, to see things differently, to put things into perspective. People think that because we’re footballers and earn a lot of money, we don’t have any worries, but we do. A lot of things happen in the world of football, and they build up, causing you stress.

“You can play on a Wednesday and be the best in the world, while on Saturday you lose and you’re the worst. As some people couldn’t mess with me directly because I don’t look at social media, they looked for other ways. They wrote to my wife, threatening my daughters. You try and try to figure out how to deal with that. I understand it’s part of my job, but there are things we shouldn’t tolerate or take for granted.”

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