It’s 2013: During a championship game, Daniel Engelbrecht collapses unconscious and lifeless with cardiac arrhythmia. His life is on a knife edge and miraculously he returns to life. But this life was never to be the same. Heart muscle inflammation brings him to his knees. Doctors tell him that his career as a professional soccer player is over. His heart has not fully recovered. His world collapses and his dream shatters.
Daniel Engelbrecht is 22 years old when he suffers this blow of fate.
Ever since he was a child, Daniel Engelbrecht has had the dream of one day becoming a professional soccer player and playing in the biggest stadiums in the world. The dream of millions of children. It is a hard and long way. This path holds many difficulties and setbacks. Motivation, passion and discipline are required. Daniel Engelbrecht makes it to the 2nd Bundesliga with VFL Bochum and the next steps, the 1st Bundesliga and perhaps Champions League, are just around the corner. He is on the watch list of many clubs. His dream seems to become reality.
He has turned his hobby into his profession. His goal is within reach. His profile in the soccer scene: young, ambitious, tall, talented. Daniel Engelbrecht is in great demand throughout Germany. He joins the Stuttgarter Kickers. Exactly in the year when his dreams are shattered into a thousand pieces.
Daniel Engelbrecht Lecture Topics:
- The goal in sight: when motivation and ambition suddenly turn into a fight for survival.
- The bittersweet applause – From acclaimed football star to comeback to life
- Plan B: Back to life and on the road to success
- “Herzrasen”
Even during his soccer career, Daniel Engelbrecht gives occasional talks in which he shares his story with people. He discovers the passion behind it and the desire to help with his story. The need to save people from the fate that has befallen him. The desire to help other people achieve their goals and bring out the best in themselves.
After his active football career Daniel Engelbrecht worked as a football scout and in the talent management of various Bundesliga clubs. Furthermore Daniel Engelbrecht completed a rhetoric education. He learns how to use and apply the tools of language and structure correctly. His presentations include the topics of motivation, mindfulness and passion. Daniel Engelbrecht inspires his audience with his gripping life story. He takes his listeners on his breathtaking journey and provides assistance and inspiration for his lecture topics.
Daniel Engelbrecht’s path to the stage is no ordinary one. After he had to end his soccer career, he discovers a whole new facet for himself. Even as an active soccer player, people ask about his story. The media interest is also great and still exists.
For example, he appears as a studio guest on programs such as “Das aktuelle Sportstudio”(ZDF), “Markus Lanz” (ZDF), “Stern TV” (RTL), or even “Sat1-Frühstücksfernsehen” (Sat1).
“This story touches all of soccer Germany”- STERN
“He accepts the blow of fate as a challenge. In an impressive way, he fights his way back into life. Back on the pitch. Back into the stadiums. He comes back as a fighter in whom nobody believed anymore. As the first German professional soccer player with an implanted defibrillator. This comeback is unique and goes around the world.”