Juan Izquierdo: Uruguayan footballer dies aged 27 after collapsing on the pitch | World news
A Uruguayan soccer player has died at the age of 27, five days after collapsing during a match in Brazil.
Juan Izquierdo was playing a Copa Libertadores match in Sao Paulo when he suffered a cardiac arrest on Thursday.
His club Nacional announced his death in a post on X and said they were “in mourning over his irreplaceable loss.”
Izquierdo will receive medical treatment on Thursday. Image: Reuters
“It is with deep pain and shock in our hearts that Club Nacional de Football announces the death of our beloved player Juan Izquierdo,” the club wrote.
The defender died on Tuesday at the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo, where it was said that he had suffered a “cardiovascular arrest associated with a cardiac arrhythmia”.
Doctors said Monday that Izquierdo was in neurological intensive care and was still on a ventilator. They had previously said he had experienced “worsening of his brain damage and an increase in intracranial pressure.”
Izquierdo was at Nacional for the second time and helped the club win its first league title in over a century in 2023.
Alejandro Dominguez, president of the South American football confederation CONMEBOL, said the football community on the continent was in mourning.
Izquierdo was taken off the pitch by ambulance on Thursday. Image: Reuters
The opponent from Sao Paulo called it a “sad day for football” and said on X that he was “deeply saddened” by his death.
According to Uruguayan media, he leaves behind his wife and two-year-old daughter.
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Other well-known footballers have suffered sudden cardiac arrest in recent years and subsequently died.
Christian Eriksen was carried off the field after collapsing during Denmark’s opening match at the 2020 European Championship. He returned eight months later when he came on as a substitute for Brentford in a Premier League match.
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Tom Lockyer of Luton Town said he “literally died” for two minutes and 40 seconds after collapsing during a Premier League match in December 2023.
The 29-year-old has now had a defibrillator implanted in his chest and returned to Luton training ground “to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation this month.”
