A brilliant athlete in despair

Luis Cabral

Uruguay is in shock after losing one of its most famous soccer stars to suicide, said Luis Cabral. Santiago García, 30, was found dead in his apartment earlier this month. The forward had been playing for Argentine team Godoy Cruz since 2016, and was the top scorer in the club’s history, with 51 goals in 122 games. But his play slumped last year after the pandemic forced a break in the game schedule, and club president José Mansur had recently denounced García as a bad influence and said his time with the team was finished. We know now that the behaviors Mansur cited—the “poor performance, lack of motivation, weight

gain, and missing workouts”—were signs of García’s depression. He had, in fact, been receiving psychiatric treatment. At the start of this year, the soccer star received another hit: García tested positive for Covid-19 and was forced to quarantine in his apartment, unable to go home to be with his family in Uruguay. It is simply inexcusable that the club did not check on this young man and offer him the treatment he so obviously needed. Soccer players are prone to depression, given that they often live abroad and face “intense performance pressure.” Those who manage them have a responsibility to protect their mental health.