On The Ball | La Liga off but there is light amid Spain’s coronavirus lockdown
- Former Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz is the game’s highest profile victim of the virus, as Prime Minister warns worst is to come
- Matches off from La Liga to grass roots with country adapting to life indoors with online discos and shared jokes
The biggest sports story in Spain since the state of emergency was declared on Friday, March 13, was the death on Saturday of former Real Madrid president Lorenzo Sanz from the coronavirus.
Sanz, 76, was the cigar-smoking president who oversaw Madrid’s first European Cup in 32 years in 1998. He took Fabio Capello from AC Milan to Madrid in 1996 when Serie A was top dog and Madrid didn’t win European Cups.
Capello was one of the few coaches that Sanz didn’t sack, while he sanctioned Madrid breaking their transfer record to sign Nicolas Anelka from Arsenal. Steve McManaman arrived from Liverpool and they won the European Cup again in 2000 after knocking holders Manchester United out.
It was a surprise that Sanz then failed to win the presidential elections, but rival Florentino Perez promised galactico recruits. Sanz’s son, Fernando, played for Real Madrid’s first team, his nephew Michel Salgado too.
“I know what Madrid meant to you when you were a seven-year-old selling bottles of water at the Bernabeu with your grandmother,” wrote Salgado, “and when you brought back the two Champions League titles. No Madridista will ever forget you.”