TRIBUTES have been paid to a Colombian teenage football player who died in hospital after collapsing during a game.
Santiago Castrillon, an Under-20 player with Bogota-based Millonarios whose first team plays in the top-flight Primera A league in Colombia, lost his fight for life yesterday, a day after he was rushed to hospital.
The 18-year-old’s club said overnight in a statement paying tribute to the player who used the number 10 shirt: “Millonarios FC reports that on Saturday player Santiago Castrillon suffered a collapse during a National U-20 Tournament match.
“He was immediately attended to by the team’s doctors and transferred by ambulance to a high-complexity hospital in the north of Bogota, where he was treated in intensive care by all specialists in the cardiovascular area.
“Despite medical efforts, Santiago was unable to recover and passed away this Sunday in the company of his family, team-mates, and friends.”
It added, referencing the club’s ‘The Blues’ nickname: “Today football comes to a stop. The blue heart is broken. Today pain overwhelms us, fills us with helplessness and sadness.
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“With deep sorrow we bid farewell to our number 10, our team-mate, our friend.
“Santiago didn’t just play football. He lived it, felt it, shared it with a smile that today remains etched in all of us.
“We raise our prayers for his soul. To his family and loved ones, a message of strength in this moment that is impossible to understand.
“Santiago, our dear teammate, rest in peace.”
The offensive midfielder, who would have been 19 in September, was born in the city of Bucaramanga, the capital of the department of Santander in north-central Colombia.
He joined Millonarios in 2021.
Santiago was playing against Millonarios’s arch-rivals, Independiente Santa Fe, when he suffered his collapse.
Luis Eduardo Pedraza, a teacher at Guayos FC where the youngster began playing club football before moving to Bogota, said in an interview before the weekend tragedy: “Santi is an excellent person, he is a very hardworking, very humble, very disciplined boy, very passionate about soccer, with a clear vision of what he wanted; since he was a child he was always like that.
“From a footballing perspective, he was extraordinary; he had qualities that at his age were dazzling. Back then, he was a skinny kid, but with very good technique, a good change of pace, and he handled both sides of his game very well.”
Before his death, Santiago trained regularly with the Millonarios first team and in October last year received his first official call-up for a BetPlay match against Atletico Bucaramanga.
Independiente Santa Fe, whose players joined in prayers for Santiago at the end of Saturday’s match after he was rushed to hospital, said in its own social media statement after his death: “Independiente Santa Fe deeply regrets the passing of Santiago Castrillon, U-20 player for Millonarios.
“Today football is in mourning, and we come together to support his entire family and loved ones during this difficult time.”