I recall Laurie Cunningham died in a car crash in Spain in July 1989. He was at the end of his career but had come on as a sub for Wimbledon in the previous yearâs FA Cup final.
Juanito the fella who stamped on Lothar Matthaus was killed in a car crash in April 1992.
There was a Porto player killed in a car crash in August 1994, Rui Felipe I think his name was but I hadnât heard of him.
There was Gianluigi Lentini but he survived although he was never the same player after his crash.
I honestly think youâd nearly have to go back to the Munich air disaster for for an instance of a top player being taken down in their prime by an accident.
I honestly never heard anybody say a bad word about Diogo Jota. He just seemed like a lovely unassuming lad who always gave everything on the pitch. I recall he gave a great performance when Liverpool beat Manchester City 1-0 in October 2022 but got injured very late in that game and missed the World Cup and thinking how cruel it was on him. But it just goes to show how sporting disappointments are merely part of the joy of living. And his poor brother as well. This is all kinds of wrong.
I recall a case of a lady in college getting done for killing her friends following a tyre blow out. She had a banger of a car and wasnât checking the thread depth on the tyres.
Youâd imagine he hadnât got a threadbare tyre anyway on that motor. Just one of those things, could have clipped something. I had a blowout recently, met a car and had to stay in close to the side of a road, clipped a sharp stone that had dislodged out of a wall, and bang, that was that. Thankfully I wasnât going hard, but did well to bring it to a stop nonetheless. Luck plays are a terrifying part with our everyday lives. Iâd always rather be lucky than good.
I recall reading about that in Shoot magazine. The Polish international Kazimierz Deyna who played at the 1974 World Cup and played for Manchester City was killed in a car crash around the same time.
There was Drazen Petrovic who was Croatiaâs star basketball player who played at the 1992 Olympics where Croatia won a silver medal only losing to the US Dream Team in the final. He was killed the following year in a crash on an Autobahn in Germany. Goran Ivanisevic emptonally referenced him speaking immediately after he won the Wimbledon title in 2001.