Miscellaneous

Spain buries Tenerife striker Jesús de Miguel

Autopsy points to commotio cordis from 96th-minute collision, club vows lifelong care for his 16-month-old daughter

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Family and friends carry Jesús de Miguel’s coffin in Navahermosa. Photograph: Alejandro Martinez Velez/Reuters Family and friends carry Jesús de Miguel’s coffin in Navahermosa. Photograph: Alejandro Martinez Velez/Reuters theguardian.com
The streets of Navahermosa were full as mourners paid their respects to Jesús de Miguel. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP The streets of Navahermosa were full as mourners paid their respects to Jesús de Miguel. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP theguardian.com
Tenerife players mourn their teammate after his death which has shocked the footballing world. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP Tenerife players mourn their teammate after his death which has shocked the footballing world. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP theguardian.com
These have been dark, desperate days when it was impossible to assimilate what has happened. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP These have been dark, desperate days when it was impossible to assimilate what has happened. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP theguardian.com

The streets of Navahermosa, a village of 3,587 people in La Mancha, were fuller on Thursday than they have ever been, the Guardian reports. They had come to bury Jesús de Miguel, the Tenerife striker who died after a collision in a game on Monday, and family and friends carried his coffin from the funeral home to the parish church of San Miguel Arcángel. Among those present was Luis de la Fuente, the manager of Spain: "In moments of pain, football comes together more than ever."

De Miguel was 30. In the 96th minute of the second-division game he chased a ball to the centre circle, where the Andorra goalkeeper Jesús Owono crashed into him. Medical staff treated him on the pitch for six minutes while players stood watching; the club says a pulse was re-established in the ambulance, and doctors at the Hospital Universitario de Nuestra Señora de Candelaria in Santa Cruz got him breathing again. At 3am his condition deteriorated neurologically. He died at 8am, and Tenerife announced his death 31 minutes later.

The preliminary autopsy pointed to commotio cordis, a trauma of the thorax that can only occur when an impact lands within a 40-millisecond window of the cardiac cycle. A routine investigation has been opened, focused not only on Owono but on the medical protocol applied.

In the days around the death, the club did the organising. De Miguel's parents hurried to find a flight to Santa Cruz, where Rayco García, the majority shareholder, collected them. García wept as he left the building where the body had lain, asked De Miguel's teammates to stay close to the widow, Maria, and vowed the club would take care of the couple's 16-month-old daughter, Clara, for ever. Maria had been in the stands with Clara in her arms when the collision happened. Felipe Miñambres, the Tenerife president, said the club would get through it together but would need "professional help".

De Miguel grew up in Leganés and played most of his career at Fuenlabrada, Salamanca and Castellón, a thousand miles from the island where he died. Raphinha, Barcelona's captain, offered the shortest tribute of the week: "I am the same age."