People will always come with all kinds of accidents, and the same is true for football players. Some players' green dreams have not yet been completed or even just begun, and they have ended their lives early due to accidents.
Many late-watching fans may not know the player named "Jiang Tao", but 17 years ago, he was known to Chinese players for an unexpected tragedy. Jiang Tao was born in September 1985, a native of Jilin Province, and his tall figure mainly plays as a defender. Due to his outstanding talent for playing football, Jiang Tao was given the opportunity to play abroad after being selected in 2001. The 16-year-old Star of Hope in Chinese football joined Xinlin and quickly gained a foothold. Xinlin was a Chinese-funded team that was playing in the Singapore Pro League at the time, with more Chinese players in the squad.
On March 10, 2004, the Xinlin Second Team began its daily training. Just as the players were all gathered around the head coach to listen to his explanations and lectures, a lightning bolt suddenly fell from the sky. After the lightning, the team members found that Jiang Tao fell to the ground. According to teammates at the scene, lightning directly hit Jiang Tao's shoulder, and the player even raised green smoke after falling to the ground. Medical test results show that Jiang Tao is likely to have died the moment he was struck by lightning. Because the accident happened so suddenly, Jiang Tao didn't even react to himself, and he was still smiling after he fell. Although the doctor went all out to rescue him, he still failed to save Jiang Tao's life, and his life was forever fixed at the age of 18.
There were a large number of people at the scene at the time of the incident, but the strange thing is that only Jiang Tao was struck by lightning and unfortunately killed, and the reason is speculated to be that Jiang Tao is the tallest. As we all know, Raiden always prioritizes finding the tallest object to attack. To some extent, the tall Jiang Tao protected his teammates and coaches around him. Singapore is a rainy and thunderous weather, and players are more vulnerable to lightning when training outdoors. Although lightning protection facilities were installed in the stadium, the protective effect was not obvious due to the empty space of the venue.
After the accident, all parties actively took care of the aftermath for Jiang Tao. Both the Singapore FA and Xinlin launched donations for Jiang Tao, while the Singapore League held a silent ceremony for the players before the start of the week's matches. The Xinlin team provided jiang tao's family with compensation of about 600,000 yuan in accordance with relevant regulations. Although 600,000 yuan was already quite impressive in 2004, no matter how high the compensation could not be exchanged for Jiang Tao's life, nor could it recover the losses suffered by Chinese football.
There are not a few players in football at home and abroad who have unfortunately died due to accidents, and the reasons for death are not only struck by lightning, but also drowning, depression, heart attack and so on. Recently, Oman international Lakkadi suffered a heart attack during pre-match warm-up training and died. Fans are shocked or sad at the same time, but also should take these accidents and tragedies as a lesson, take the initiative to pay attention to physical and mental health, and protect against possible risks in advance.
I wish every player who unfortunately passed away due to an accident that they can continue their football dreams in heaven and hope that similar accidents will not happen again.