The German goalkeeper who was struck and killed by a train left a suicide note, police said, and Robert Enke’s widow says he had been suffering from depression.

Speaking at a news conference called by his club, Teresa Enke said her 32-year-old husband was afraid their adopted daughter would be taken away from the family if his illness became public knowledge. The couple’s biological daughter died three years ago from a heart problem she had from birth when she was 2.

“I tried to be there for him,” Teresa Enke said, choking back tears. “When he was acutely depressive, it was a difficult time. We thought we’d manage everything. We thought with love, we could do it. But you can’t.”

Teresa Enke said her husband had been afraid that he would lose “his sport, our private life,” if his illness had become known. In May, the couple adopted a girl who is now eight months old.

Enke died on Tuesday evening when he threw himself before a train near his Hanover home. Police said on Wednesday they had found a suicide note.

Fear of failure

Valentin Markser, a doctor who treated Enke, said the goalkeeper first sought treatment in 2003, when he lost his starting place at Barcelona and developed anxieties and fear of failure. Enke again sought treatment in early October, after developing a mysterious illness. Doctors took several weeks to determine that he had been suffering from a bacterial intestinal infection.

In a suicide note, Enke apologised to his family and the staff treating him for deliberately misleading them into believing he was better, “which was necessary in order to carry out the suicide plans,” Markser said.

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