Argentine player Lionel Messi played coach Alejandro Sabella during a match of the 2014 Brazil Soccer World Cup.FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT / AFP
Argentine coach Alejandro Sabella, runner-up in the world with Lionel Messi's albiceleste at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, died this Tuesday in Buenos Aires after being hospitalized for several days due to "secondary dilated heart disease" and with a "reserved" prognosis.
Local media reported that Sabella, 66, was administered antibiotics due to a feverish illness caused by a virus that she was infected with at the hospital where she had been admitted, in the capital's Belgrano neighborhood.
Sabella was an endearing River Plate footballer in the 1970s. He had an English affair at Sheffield United and Leeds before returning to Argentina to triumph at Estudiantes de La Plata.
He also appeared in the Brazilian championship with Gremio and even played his last years in Mexico, in the extinct Irapuato.
The IBCA, the Cardiovascular Institute, had reported that “the 66-year-old patient Alejandro Sabella suffers from dilated heart disease secondary to coronary disease and cardiotoxicity, having entered this institution on November 25, 2020, with cardiogenic shock and previous infection .
His painting has a reserved prognosis ”.
The Argentine team, Estudiantes de La Plata and many other local clubs sent greetings and wishes for a speedy recovery to Sabella through social networks.
The 66-year-old coach, who won the 2009 Copa Libertadores and the 2010 Argentine League with Estudiantes de La Plata, left the Albiceleste in 2014 and has not coached since then.
In recent years he suffered from a type of cancer that was not specified.
"When I was fighting to see if I was still here with you or if I was going to the other side, I remembered what I said to my students, to my players: 'You can't give less than 100%."
If I asked them, I had to fight to stay alive, ”he said in 2018.