The doctors, on the run, going to the stands, the field delegate talking to the coaches, the fourth referee notifying the referee... Something bad was happening in the stands. A veteran Cádiz fan had collapsed and suffered a heart attack. It was the 81st minute of the match, Barça was already dominating almost at will, but everything stopped in an instant. The attendances were grouped in the south end of the Nuevo Mirandilla stadium, right where Barcelona scored the four goals, warned by the followers of that sector. The Cádiz goalkeeper, Jeremías Ledesma, went to the area urgently with a defibrillator in his hand that the Barça physiotherapist Carlos Nogueira had given him. It was not known what was happening for sure, but there was a significant health problem.
The Blaugrana Ronald Araújo, very religious, began to pray, Ter Stegen sat on the ball in his area with a worried gesture and several Cádiz footballers raised their hands to their faces.
In the Premier League it happened a couple of times last season. The matches were stopped to attend to fans in the stands, but for a short period of time, approximately a quarter of an hour. But in Cádiz the minutes passed and the footballers remained on the pitch in the midst of a moving silence in the stands.
The images were unprecedented in the Spanish League. From time to time episodes of this type happened in the stands but the meetings did not stop.
From Cerro Grande, the referee, awaited instructions to know what to expect and in the end, 21 minutes after the match was stopped, the footballers received the order to go through the locker room tunnel without knowing if they could return or not.
Over the loudspeaker it was announced that the meeting was "paused", not suspended, and then a large part of the fans left their seats. To make matters worse, a television camera operator suffered a drop in blood pressure and also had to be treated, although he recovered soon.
At the same time, the health services continued to treat the follower who, according to the president of Cádiz, was revived and fell again until they managed to stabilize him and recover his vital signs.
Even in a serious condition, a stretcher was moved to the area to transport the fan to a hospital very close to the stadium. In those agonizing minutes of uncertainty, it was even communicated to the coaches and players that it seemed that there was nothing to do with the life of the fan. The only important thing was that and not football in those moments of uncertainty. If the fan had died in the stands, the immediate suspension of the match would have been agreed.
Since that did not happen, Cádiz reported that the match would resume. At 9:05 p.m., after 56 minutes of the unexpected break, the ball was rolling again at the Nuevo Mirandilla, with many fewer fans in their towns. But the anguish was still floating in the atmosphere.
