Sometimes, being on the football pitch can literally mean life or death. Today, Sarthak Kumar looks at two such cases in Spanish football.
Scene 1: 25th August, 2007. Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán, Seville, Sevilla.
Silence.
The fans were scared. He had just collapsed - just like that. He wasn’t moving.
The medical staff rushed to Antonio Puerta, desperate to make sure he didn’t swallow his tongue. He recovered and was substituted off immediately.
But then, in the dressing room, he collapsed again. The medics tried cardiac resuscitation, before taking Antonio to the intensive care unit of the Virgen del Rocío hospital. They tried everything - but the damage was irreversible. On the 28th of August, Antonio Puerta had passed away.
He was 22.
The left-back who had scored the goal against Schalke to take Sevilla to the 2006 UEFA Cup final. The player who had, just a few months ago, won the 2007 Copa del Rey, scored the decisive penalty in the 2007 UEFA Cup final, and rejected bids from Arsenal, Manchester United and Real Madrid. The left-back destined for huge, huge things.
He was gone.
He had suffered serious brain damage and multiple organ failure due to a disease called arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, a condition which is hereditary and remains incurable to this day.
Sevilla wanted to retire the shirt number 16 in his honour, but the great men at the Royal Spanish Football Federation were adamant the clubs use numbers 1 till 25 for the squad. As a result, David Prieto wore the shirt in the 2007–08 season but after that only youth products were allowed to wear that jersey, in honour of the system that had produced successful players like Antonio.
His teammates would never forget that incident. In the UEFA Euro 2008, when Spain had won and the celebrations had started, Sergio Ramos wore a T-shirt with Puerta and the number 16 on the back. On the front was the picture of the fallen hero.
Below the picture were those three words.
Siempre con nosotros.
Scene 2: 8th August, 2009. Coverciano, Florence, Italy.
Panic.
Ferran Corominas and Moisés Hurtado rushed into the room and found Dani Jarque unconscious.
Within minutes, the first ambulance arrived from the Florence emergency services. They tried the defibrillator without success. They then tried CPR. They administered adrenaline and atropine for an hour - until they could do no more.
A heart attack, they would later say. Dani Jarque was on the phone with his girlfriend, who was expecting a baby, and had suffered a heart attack - she had alerted Ferran promptly but it was too late by the time they reached there.
He was 26.
Dani Jarque and Iniesta were like Xavi and Casillas - close friends playing for bitter enemies. Dani Jarque was Espanyol through and through - progressing through the youth system and being a mainstay in the Espanyol defence. He was tough, quick across the ground, and helped Espanyol win the Copa del Rey in 2006 and reach the UEFA Cup final in 2007.
He was the consummate captain - inspiring, professional, and dedicated. In fact, he was the captain in the 2009-10 season, when he took over captaincy duties from legend Raúl Tamudo. Before the league had even started, Espanyol had lost their captain. Before the baby was even born, it had lost its father.
So after Jesús Navas raced past opposition defenders on the right wing, after he was outnumbered and passed to Iniesta, after the ball was back heeled to Fàbregas, after the ball reached Navas and then Fernando Torres on the left wing, after his cross-field attempt to Iniesta was blocked by Rafael van der Vaart, after the rebound reached Fàbregas, after he passed it past three Dutch players at the edge of the box, after Iniesta controlled the ball, shot the ball past van der Vaart’s outstretched leg and past the keeper, and after the world reacted to a 116th minute goal in the 2010 World Cup final, Andrés Iniesta ran towards the touchline, took of his jersey and revealed a white commemorative T-shirt underneath.
It was quickly covered by celebrating teammates, but the fans had seen it.
Dani Jarque, siempre con nosotros.
from Barca Blaugranes - All Posts http://ift.tt/1HJYUlm
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