Gudelj Faked Death on the Field Twice: “The Second Time I Thought, ‘That's It’”

Former Serbian defender was forced to end his professional career after two major scares in 2023.

Almost two years ago, Dragisa Gudelj was on the brink of death. The former Serbian defender was on the pitch at Córdoba-Racing de Ferrol and fell unconscious on the pitch, suffering a cardiac arrest, having been saved by the doctors who attended to him, after several minutes of agony. 

All this happened in March and a few months later, Dragisa Gudelj announced his retirement from football, believing he was lucky enough to be able to continue living, as he said in an interview with AS, published this Saturday.

"I was on the pitch for three and a half minutes practically dead, without a pulse. For me it all happened in a second. I fell, got up and thought: 'What happened?'. Later they told me that I was unresponsive for about seven minutes and in cardiorespiratory arrest for three minutes. In the video you can see that when I got up I started pushing everyone and saying that nothing was happening", Dragisa Gudelj began by recalling, continuing.

"It was the most special and strangest moment of my life. I felt like I was getting lost and that I had entered a tunnel that was getting smaller and darker and that I could hear everything that each of the almost 25,000 people who were at El Arcángel were saying.

Then I went to the moment when I got into the ambulance and the doctor said to me: 'Dragi, you have to calm down because you had a cardiorespiratory arrest'. At that moment my world stopped and I had all my doubts. I will never forget that for the rest of my life", said the brother of Nemanja Gudelj, who wore the Sporting jersey.

Despite the (huge) scare, Dragisa Gudelj did not give up on his football career straight away and ended up returning to competition with an implanted cardiac defibrillator, which allows, for example, Manchester United's Eriksen to continue playing, but in December 2023. The then Córdoba player, however, felt unwell again on the pitch and had to make the same decision as other players, such as Kun Aguero and Iker Casillas, to end his career for his own good.

"After the first time, I wasn't afraid. I wanted to play, train... (...) When it happened the second time, in those 10 seconds I felt like I was dying and that I was going to leave this world. At that moment I didn't think that the defibrillator would save my life. I just thought: 'That's it'. In 10 seconds my whole life flashed before my eyes", confessed Dragisa.

When asked if his heart problem affects his day-to-day life, the former player who played for Vitória SC's under-23 and B teams in Portugal, says he has a "normal life".

"I don't have any problems now. I'm fine physically. I do sports and go to the gym and I have a normal life", concluded Gudelj.