Tenerife Striker Jesus de Miguel Dies Aged 30 After On-Pitch Collision

Photo: CD Tenerife via Deccan Herald, Jesus de Miguel celebrating in his Tenerife shirt

Tenerife striker Jesus de Miguel has died at the age of 30, a day after a collision with a goalkeeper during a match left him fighting for his life. His club announced the news on Tuesday morning, and football across Spain stopped to mourn a player who had only just reached the second tier after years of hard work in the lower leagues.

The match was against FC Andorra on Monday at Tenerife's Estadio Heliodoro Rodriguez Lopez, and the score was 2-2 seven minutes into added time. De Miguel had come on as a substitute in the 59th minute, with his side leading 2-0 at the time.

Al Jazeera reported that a ball cleared from the Tenerife penalty area bounced towards midfield, where De Miguel chased it and was challenged by Andorra goalkeeper Jesus Owono. The keeper had rushed out of his area to clear the ball, and his knee appeared to strike De Miguel in the chest.

Owono was shown a straight red card at once. Players from both sides waved medical staff onto the pitch, and De Miguel was treated on the field for more than five minutes before he was taken away by ambulance. The match was abandoned, with players in tears.

Spanish media reported that De Miguel suffered a cardiac arrest in the ambulance on the way to the Hospital Universitario de Nuestra Senora de Candelaria in Santa Cruz, where he was admitted to intensive care. Late on Monday night the club said he was stable, given how serious his condition was, but in the early hours of Tuesday his condition worsened, and he died at 8 in the morning.

The club statement read: "Broken with pain, with a lump in our throat and unable to believe that this is true, we communicate the tragic death of Jesus de Miguel Alameda. There are no words of comfort. There is absolutely nothing to mitigate this feeling full of sadness."

His family thanked everyone for the support they had received, and asked for privacy in what the club called terrible moments.

De Miguel was born in Madrid in 1996 and made his debut with Leganes B in 2015. He played for eight other clubs in Spain before joining Tenerife in 2025 from Castellon, where he had top scored with 16 goals as his side won promotion to the second division in the 2023-24 season. He made his professional debut with Castellon in August 2024 at the age of 27, and scored 11 goals for Tenerife last season.

It was a late breakthrough, and that is what makes this loss hit so hard for fans who had watched him climb, step by step, to this level.

Tributes came from across Spanish football. Barcelona said their thoughts and support were with his family, friends and loved ones. Real Madrid sent condolences to his family, team mates and club. Andorra sent their most sincere condolences too. Sky Sports reported that the Spanish football federation postponed all matches scheduled for Tuesday, including fixtures in the Copa del Rey and Copa de la Reina.

For Pakistani readers, the week in sport also included the ODI tri-series that brought England to Pakistan, with seven matches across Rawalpindi and Lahore.

The wider football world has had a sad run of farewells of late, from Glenn Maxwell retiring from international cricket to the Asian Cup 2027 being moved to December 2027, but this is different. This is not a retirement or a rescheduled tournament. It is a young player who went out to chase a long ball and never came home.

Football, for all its noise and money, is still a game played by people, and moments like this remind every fan of that in the hardest way.

Sources

• Al Jazeera: Tenerife's Jesus de Miguel dies after on-field collision with goalkeeper
• Sky Sports: Tenerife striker Jesus de Miguel dies after cardiac arrest following collision during a match
• Deccan Herald (Reuters): Tenerife striker Jesus de Miguel dies after collision in match

Watch for Tenerife's announcement on funeral arrangements and on when their next match, against Granada, will go ahead.

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