Exclusive Dzsenifer Marozsan interview: How the contraceptive pill left me almost unable to walk

Dzsenifer Marozsán has always been reticent to speak in depth about the pulmonary embolism that left her collapsed on the floor of her parents’ house - in Germany in the summer of 2018 - and gasping for breath. This will be the first time she has done so, but Lyon and Germany’s medal-laden all-star playmaker betrays little anxiety about doing so.

In the eyes of England’s Lucy Bronze, Marozsán, 27, is the best women’s player in the world, a blend of natural trickery and agility previously only found in the feet of Kelly Smith. Yet the possibility of any more of those trademark runs - darting and drifting between defenders, like a contortionist slipping from the world’s loosest straightjacket - felt remote, despite doctors’ assurances she would make a full recovery, when she could barely walk without feeling breathless.

The first she knew was when “I fell down and I couldn’t respire anymore. It was a really scary moment. I didn’t know what was happening. I felt some pain in my muscles, in the left shoulder and the right shoulder first. It got worse and worse.”

Budapest-born Marozsán moved to south-west Germany as a child when her professional footballer father, Janos, signed for Saarbrücken. There were three days left of the first six-week vacation of her career when the incident occurred. “It was a moment I couldn’t explain. I didn’t know why. We went first to a doctor I know well, because I grew up there. I’m a person who can have some pain, but she never saw me crying like this. She told me directly: ‘We have to go to the hospital. It should be something worse, so please let’s check.’” 

Two days of tests followed before she learned of the blocked blood vessel in her lungs. “It came out it’s from the anti-baby pills,” she says. There was no operation, but three months of medication during which time she “couldn’t make any sports, not contact sports, because it was too dangerous because of the medication I took. After two months, I could start biking, but really just five minutes, because when I just walked I really couldn’t respire hard.”

She mimes a weak, shallow breath, fingers pressing gently on her chest. “It was really difficult just to leave from the sofa to the kitchen. It was really scary when this happened. I was just scared the doctor [would] tell me I will never step on the pitch. That was the scariest thing they could tell me. When they told me after three months you stop the medication and you can start again, I was sure I would come back stronger than ever because I am really a fighter. I just want to play, and I will do everything for that.”

Did she ever consider life without football? “No. I don’t think about it because it makes me just to cry. I just believed that the doctor would say these words.”

She was given extra incentive to return by her brother, David - five years older at 32 - and the knee injury that robbed him of his own professional career. It was a desire to emulate David - more than her father, who made four appearances for the Hungarian national team and whose training sessions she attended, age five, when she was smacked in the face with a stray ball - that led her to play in the first place.

David was 18, poised to sign professional terms, when he fell victim to the injury all footballers fear. “His ACL - his knee is really done,” she says. “There’s nothing between the bones - it’s just bone on bone. His knee’s all time like this,” she offers a half-limp, “even just to walk. It’s like I play for him because I learn a lot from him. When he got injured I was crying: ‘Why him and why not me?’ I would have given him my knee at this moment because I was so sad for him. He was so talented. Now when he’s in the stadium he’s just proud. My family are always there for me. It doesn’t matter which situation.”

She returned to Budapest earlier this year for her fourth Champions League win. Her wider family still live there, and she speaks fluent Hungarian. Four languages, in total, since her move to Lyon in 2016. “But with the French, we cannot really count it,” she jokes. “It’s not that good. I took some lessons at the beginning, the first two seasons, but I stopped because now I’m at the point where I don’t care when people laugh about me.” Having finishing last season with three domestic trophies, Marozsán and her Lyon team-mates have had the last laugh.

Dzsenifer Marozsán  was speaking at the Team Visa Summit. To find out more about Team Visa, visit visa.co.uk