TYRONE Mings has revealed he battled Covid at the start of the pandemic – losing both his sense of taste and smell for eight months.
The Three Lions ace spoke exclusively to The Sun today about his experience of the virus and said he had ultimate respect for the NHS and key workers who kept the country on its feet.
Tyrone, 28, said he believed he contracted Covid before the lockdown.
He said: “I was so ill. It was awful. I had all the symptoms, and I lost my smell and taste from that day for eight months.
“It was heartbreaking – I was going through all the different food groups trying to work out how I could get my taste back.
“I remember my smell coming back very faint, I would spray perfume and I would get a faint whiff.
“With my taste it was like my brain was telling me what something tasted like.
It was awful. I had all the symptoms, and I lost my smell and taste from that day for eight months.
“Like I still wouldn’t eat foods I didn’t like, even though I couldn’t taste anything. It made no sense.
“I remember finally going for a curry one time and I got the faintest test and I thought, ‘Here we go. It’s coming back!”
In his interview with The Sun, the Aston Villa defender also spoke candidly about his own mental health battles during the Euros.
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He worked with a psychologist who helped him cope with the challenges he was facing.
Tyrone said: “I did have a tough time in the lead up to the Croatia game.
“I think I’m a lot more hardened to outside influences now, but my mental health did plummet.
“And I have no shame in admitting that because there was so many unknowns about me going to that game, and I was probably the only name on the teamsheet that people thought, ‘Not sure about him’. And that was something I had to overcome.
“When 90-95 per cent of your country are having doubts over you, it’d very difficult for this not to intrude onto your own thoughts.
“So I did a lot of work on that with my psychologist. I was given a lot of coping mechanisms, whether it was breathing, meditation, or just learning how to bring yourself into the present moment.
“To stop letting your subconscious take over, that was hard. I didn’t really sleep very well before that first game.”
But while he did face dark moments, Tyrone said all the players, under manager Gareth Southgate, 50, had hugely positive experiences during the tournament.
Highlights included Ed Sheeran, 30, coming to surprise the players with a gig.
Tyrone explained: “Declan Rice joined him for a duet, they sang Wonderwall… it was genuinely one of the best nights of my life”.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
