Former Serbian international Sinisa Mihajlovic has died of leukemia aged 53, his family said in a statement on Friday. His wife Arianna and their five children deplored in this press release to the Italian agency Ansa the “unjust and premature death” of the player who has long played in Italy (AS Roma, Lazio Rome, Sampdoria Genoa and Inter Milan), becoming the one of the most renowned free-kick takers in the world, before becoming a coach at Bologna.
Illness declared in 2019
He was “a unique man and an extraordinary professional” who announced his illness in the summer of 2019 when he had been coaching Bologna since January of the same year, they added. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed “an example of courage for those who face illness”. “You fought like a lion on the pitch and in life,” she wrote on her Twitter account.
Last March, Mihajlovic announced that he had to be hospitalized again because of a risk of relapse, after a period of remission thanks to a bone marrow transplant. Back on the bench, he was sacked last September due to poor results.