“Forever in our hearts”: 25-year-old professional soccer player breaks down during training and dies

Created: 01/05/2022, 5:57 pm

The Guatemalan professional footballer Marcos Menaldo died after a cardiac arrest.

© Screenshot / Facebook Club Deportivo Marquense - Oficial

A professional soccer player has died after a cardiac arrest.

The sympathy in the social networks Facebook and Twitter is great.

Munich / San Marcos - A 25-year-old professional footballer collapsed on Monday (January 3, 2022) during a training session.

Marcos Menaldo, Deportivo Marquense player in San Marcos, Guatemala, suffered a cardiac arrest, according to the US broadcaster ESPN.

The player was taken to a nearby hospital, according to the report.

The doctors could not do anything for the 25-year-old, who played in the position of central defender.

Menaldo died.

Shock in Guatemala: 25-year-old professional soccer player dies

"A young, dynamic and happy person - and that happens to him," said Hernan Maldonado, president of the Deportivo football club, to ESPN.

It is "pretty shocking".

You're not just losing a player, you're losing a friend, Maldonado said.

At around eleven in the morning, he received the call that Menaldo fainted while training, he said.

"Forever in our hearts": football club mourns the deceased player

Deportive Marquense plays in the Primera División de Ascenso (second highest division) of Guatemala. The club posted several souvenirs of the deceased player on its Facebook page. For a video that Marcos Menaldo apparently shows in an interview, the club wrote: "Forever in our hearts." In another post, the club expressed its condolences to the Menaldo family. The sympathy of the Facebook users was also great. Several users showed their sympathy and commented on the posts.

Horrible events like this are rare in football, and yet they are not an isolated occurrence.

In June 2021, Christian Eriksen fought for his life at the EM after a cardiac arrest on the pitch.

The Danish international could be revived.

Around seven months after the incident, he dreams of his comeback.

Eriksen recently spoke for the first time in an interview about the time after his collapse.