An incredible episode, the one that happened to the former Cagliari player Pablo Ceppelinihit in the head by a knife thrown from the stands of the Atanasio Girardot stadium as he was preparing to take a corner kick.
The episode occurred in the final minutes of the very hot Medellin derby which took place on the evening of last Monday 22 April, a highly anticipated clash which pitted Atletico Nacional on one side, the team in which the former rossoblu footballer now plays, and bitter rivals Deportivo Independiente. For the record, the match ended in a draw with the result 2-2 due to the goals scored by Brayan León Muñiz and Ménder García for Independiente and by Édier Ocampo and Joan Castro for Atletico. A draw that essentially serves no purpose for the two teams from Medellin, who travel in mid-table of the Colombian Primera A in the opening championship, but as always in the Derby of this kind, especially in South America, the tension is palpable.
The events occurred in injury time of the match, to be precise in the 92nd minute, when Pablo Ceppelini was preparing to take a corner from the right. The images clearly show the object hitting the former Cagliari midfielder on the head: even the linesman next to him retracts, while the knifeaccording to what was reported by the local press, stuck in the pitch.
The Atletico Nacional player collapses to the ground, and there are a few moments of panic on the pitch. After realizing what had just happened, however, thereferee Wilmar Roldán, decided to wait a few minutes and end the match after injury time expired, taking into account that Ceppelini then got up and that his teammates also agreed to continue playing. A decision that sparked a wave of controversy, given the seriousness of the facts and given that things could have gone much worse for the footballer if he had been hit by the tip of the knife or the cutting edge.
“It happened during a corner kick in the last minutes of the match,” says Ceppelini. “A lot of objects were raining on me, I felt like something exploded in my head, I didn’t know what hit me”he adds, “on the ground I saw coins, bottles, lighters, everything. I leave the responsibility to Dimayor and the authorities”.
“It’s a shame because football is a celebration, but in this type of match we’re used to it”continues the former Cagliari player. “We spoke to Wilmar Roldán, a very well-known referee internationally, we thought he would suspend the match and that decisions would be made.” Unfortunately, this did not happen, and this caused anger to explode online and on social media. “There were a few minutes to go, but playing in those conditions isn’t good for football. Don’t worry, I like to talk more about football than extra things. When I got to the locker room they told me it was a knife.
I had no idea”concludes the footballer.
