A footballer booked by a no-nonsense referee for diving had in fact dropped dead of a heart attack. Goran Tunjic, a 32-year-old defender playing for the Croatian side Mladost, collapsed and fell to the ground after being tackled in the 35th minute of a game against local rivals Hrvatski Sokola. The ref, who had warned the teams in their dressing rooms before kick-off that he would deal firmly with any play-acting, promptly strode across the pitch to the prone player and waved a yellow card at him.
The Sokola supporters cheered but players who gathered around saw Tunjic was in serious trouble. The referee realised his mistake and called for medical aid. The unconscious Tunjic was stretchered from the field and taken to a nearby hospital. But he was declared dead on arrival, with doctors saying he had almost certainly died on the pitch from a massive heart attack.
“Doctors tried to help him but there was nothing they could do,” a club spokesman said of the player, who had no previous medical problems. “He just fell dead on the spot.” The fifth division home league game was abandoned, with the score at 0-0.
It is not the first time a player has died on a soccer pitch. There have been several previous cases, with probably the most familiar to British football fans being the death of Premier League player Marc-Vivien Foe. He was a record £4.2 million signing for West Ham, but later moved to Manchester City.
At the age of 28, he was playing for his home country Cameroon in the FIFA Confederations Cup, a tournament between continental champions. In the 72nd minute of the televised semi-final against Colombia, being played in Lyon, France, he collapsed in the centre-circle, with no other players near him. Despite desperate efforts to resuscitate him, he died. A post-mortem later showed he had died of a rare heart condition which is known to increase the risk of sudden death during physical exercise.
In September 1990, David Longhurst, 25, of York City collapsed with a heart attack and died on the pitch during his team’s match with Lincoln City. The game was abandoned and York City paid tribute to the player later by naming a stand in his honour at their Bootham Crescent ground.
Daily Mail
Vocabulary
booked player – sportban sárga/piros lappal figyelmeztetett játékos
to tackle – leszerel (sportban)
ref(eree) – játékvezető
unconscious – öntudatlan
play-acting – színészkedés a játék közben
to be stretcher from somewhere – hordányon levisz valahonnan
to abandon – felfüggeszt, abbahagy
post-mortem – boncolás
