By now, you may have read about the sad plight of Sevilla defender Antonio Puerta, who collapsed because of a heart attack during a Spanish league match on the weekend and succumbed to his failing heart.
It happened again on Wednesday. Chaswe Nsofwa of Israeli side Beersheva collapsed during training and died minutes later.
Both Puerta and Nsofwa were young. Puerta was 22 and Nsofwa was 26.
The hope here is that these are sad but isolated incidents. Really, though, it's a wonder that such tragedies don't happen more often. Soccer players, perhaps more than any other athlete, put their bodies under such duress and stress on a daily basis.
4 comments:
The first time I recall the death of a player on the field because of a heart attack was Marc Vivien Foe of Cameroon during the Cameroon-Colombia match during the '03 Confederations Cup in France. I recall the concern and fear in the Univision announcer's voice as soon as he fell down and his eyes rolled back. It was scary and sad to see that. I just remember the players from both teams just stunned and walking around aimlessly after the game ended and they were informed he had died.
That episode had a strong inpact on me and remember it vividly even though I only watched it through TV. Rest in peace, Marc Viven...
sad stories indeed, but guys in their 20's shouldn't drop dead from heart attacks. Makes me wonder if the performance enhancing drug epidemic, especially the designer drugs which are undetectable, helped contribute to these untimely deaths. Of all athletes, top level soccer players would reap the "benefits" of PEDs, namely faster recovery time. Many of these guys play too many matches.
It also happened in the league cup Leicester game yesterday. Scary stuff...See the story here...http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/league_cup/6968099.stm
Something should be done to look into this issue, and I hope FIFA implements some type of research or investigation to find the root cause of this problem so that young lives aren't put at risk because of a game. The only other sport I recall that has gone through this type of ordeal is baseketball, but it seems soccer has a higher frequency of this happening...if it is b/c of PEDs or too many matches, changes should be made before more of these types of stories become common, I hope positive changes to the sport will result from these sad stories.
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