Uruguayan football found itself in mourning on Christmas Day. Former international midfielder Fabian O’Neill died on Sunday at the age of 49 following cirrhosis. It was his first professional club (where he played from 1992 to 1995), the Nacional Montevideo, which announced the sad news by tweeting: “Goodbye magician! “.
Fabian O’Neill retired from sport in 2003, aged just 30. He then encountered problems with alcoholism and had been hospitalized since Saturday for a hemorrhage in a hospital in Montevideo, where he died on Sunday. “He’s the most talented player I’ve ever seen,” praised Zinedine Zidane a few years ago, about his ex-teammate at Juventus Turin, during the 2000-2001 season.
“I had 14 million dollars and I lost everything”
Fabian O’Neill had also played in Cagliari and Perugia in Italy, before returning to the Nacional to finish his career there in 2003. He had also participated shortly before with the Uruguayan selection at the 2002 World Cup, but he did not was unable to play any matches due to injury. In 2017, SoFoot told that the person concerned had one day participated in a cow auction, during which, severely alcoholic, he had gone so far as to acquire 1,104 cattle, for the modest sum of 250,000 dollars.
Ruined at the end of his career, Fabian O’Neill confided with philosophy: “I had 14 million dollars and I lost everything. I had tons of friends and today I live with a dozen vagabonds like me, we help each other. But I don’t mind being poor, I never wanted to be on the side of the rich. I have enough to buy myself a drink. Eating, I can eat rice with eggs, it’s the same. Slow horses, fast women and lots of bets, that’s why I have nothing left. La Celeste has lost its George Best to her.