World
Juan Izquierdo: Uruguayan footballer dies aged 27 after collapsing on pitch
A Uruguayan footballer has died at the age of 27, five days after collapsing during a match in Brazil.
Juan Izquierdo was playing in a Copa Libertadores game in Sao Paulo when he went into cardiac arrest on Thursday.
His club Nacional announced his death in a post on X, saying they were “in grief for his irreplaceable loss”.
Izquierdo receiving medical attention on Thursday. Pic: Reuters
“It is with deepest pain and shock in our hearts that Club Nacional de Football announces the passing of our beloved player Juan Izquierdo,” the club posted.
The defender died on Tuesday at Sao Paulo’s Hospital Albert Einstein, which said he had suffered “cardiorespiratory arrest associated with his cardiac arrhythmia”.
Doctors said on Monday that Izquierdo was under neurological critical care and still on a ventilator, after an earlier statement that he had shown “a progression of his brain damage and an increase of intracranial pressure”.
Izquierdo was in his second spell with Nacional having helped them to a first league title in more than a century in 2023.
Alejandro Dominguez, president of South American football’s governing body CONMEBOL, said the football community on the continent was in mourning.
Izquierdo was taken off the pitch by ambulance on Thursday. Pic: Reuters
Describing it as a “sad day for football”, opponents Sao Paulo said on X they were “deeply saddened” by his death.
Uruguayan media said he is survived by his wife and two-year-old daughter.
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Other high-profile footballers have collapsed suddenly after suffering from cardiac arrest in recent years.
Christian Eriksen was stretchered off the pitch after collapsing during Denmark’s opening Euro 2020 match. He returned eight months later when he came on for Brentford in a Premier League match.
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Luton Town’s Tom Lockyer 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 since had a defibrillator fitted in his chest and has returned to Luton’s training ground “to start the next phase of his rehabilitation” this month.