Sinisa Mihajlovic died aged 53 from leukemia
Sinisa Mihajlovic died aged 53 from leukemia
And now? How will this feeling of emptiness be filled when even the pain is gone? Where does it start again? Who knows how relentless the trickle of an illness can be, and with it the painful anguish that is transmitted to the people around them, knows what family, friends, the closest loved ones are feeling at this moment for the death of Sinisa Mihajlovic🇧🇷
Acute myeloid leukemia took away the former player and coach who died on Friday at the age of 53. He did everything not to give up on living: he fulfilled his promise to the Bologna players and appeared on the bench despite being visibly tested by his therapies; he continued to direct the practices from his hospital room, asking to be able to follow the work of “his boys” with a camera; he only left the team because the club wanted it and this separation was very difficult for everyone (“I’m not quitting, kick me out”he said in a meeting with the top management of the company who asked him to step down).
The pathology, the therapies and the repercussions on her body, family and work commitments: Sinisa still had many things to do, many others that she felt she had to put in order. For people who have spoken to him recently, he has shown his open window to the future. He had this character: he never gave up, it was his way of clinging to life. He did it while he had the strength.
Roberto Mancini he was linked to him by a friendship born in the countryside and then consolidated over time, even if their respective careers took different directions. The Sampdoria and Lazio jerseys, Inter’s shared bench that also marked the beginning of Mihajlovic’s coaching experience, who “studied when he grew up”. The coach of the national team confided his emotions to a letter published in Gazzetta dello Sport, some excerpts capture his agony and sadness, punctuate that old saying according to which absence is presence.
Since yesterday I don’t have a brother anymore. And even though this blood tie is sometimes abused, when talking about friendships, I don’t feel like exaggerating when defining it like this: for me Sinisa really was, because it was life that made us that way. First football and then life. This is a day I never wanted to experience. I just think about how unfair it is that such a terrible disease has taken away a 53-year-old boy, a good man, a respectable person.
There is one passage in particular that underlines all the perplexity that leaves us face to face, but on different levels: who still has a life ahead of them, who still has it in their hands but feels that, sooner or later, it will escape his. Mancini remembers his last match and can’t help but forget one thing he said to himself, it’s the phrase that still echoes in his head.
It’s hard to find other words when so little time has passed since the moment I said to myself: Roberto, this time you really won’t be able to see him anymore. Yesterday is gone: the last time you spoke to me not only with those eyes that said more than words, eyes that sometimes forced you to lower yours, was Tuesday morning. I’ll take this conversation with me forever: our things like so many we’ve talked to each other, in almost thirty years.
Twenty-eight years of football and life. It is at this pace that the relationship between Mancini and Mihajlovic sprouted and became an oak tree: everything was born in the locker room, nothing changed outside. Certain feelings evolve, but do not disperse even when one of the two is missing.
We got to know each other until we were shoulder to shoulder, when one or the other was needed.
The man and his armor. The Italy coach describes both when he explains what he means by a warrior, what it meant for Sinisa to play his role as a sportsman and coach, how he managed to combine luck (understood as events of fate) and determination, to always fight with courage, not looking for alibis .
Sinisa was a warrior, not so to speak: his war was about proving himself stronger than those who challenged him. For himself, so as not to make others feel weak. He did it with his opponents, he did it with leukemia. For him it was always too early to stop fighting and it was never too late to encourage someone, friend, partner or player, not to give up.
And how to do it, he showed even those who had never met him, those who had only heard of him, those who didn’t even know who he was but wanted to know how to do it. Because Sinisa fought like a lion until the last moment, just like he was used to doing on the field.
Forever by my side. Mancini closes Mihajlovic’s long memory exactly as he would have asked him: don’t be discouraged and look forward even if it hurts. The lesson he left him was this: showing his weaknesses – the Bologna coach did so in the 2019 conference, when he officially announced his illness – is a strength, not an indication of weakness.
It is precisely in this way that Sinisa will always remain by my side, even if she is no longer there, as she did in Genoa, Rome, Milan and, later, also when we took different paths – added Mancini -. So now that I’ve said goodbye to him forever, I like to think that it’s not quite true that I don’t have a brother anymore: he just went somewhere else, wherever he is, and from there he’ll continue to make me feel his strength like he did with those hands of steel.
And to give me assists like that day in Parma: for years there has been talk of that backheel goal of mine, but the corner that Sinisa had taken was designed, and on the field we knew each other so well that I knew perfectly where and how that cross would arrive. That corner was a gift forever, as it inspired me to score the most beautiful goal of my life. He also scored some beautiful ones, never like the last: the energy he transmitted to us in these three years, the love for life to which he educated us. That’s why I still feel him by my side, and he will be there forever.
On Sunday there will be the burial chamber in the Campidoglio. The funeral will be celebrated on Monday, December 19, in the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome. The last goodbye to Sinisa who, to tell Mancini, is not gone forever, but just somewhere else.
Source: Fan Page IT
I’m George Gonzalez, a professional journalist and author at The Nation View. With more than 5 years of experience in the field, I specialize in covering sports news for various print media outlets. My passion for writing has enabled me to craft stories that capture the attention of readers all over the world.
