CAGLIARI – He dribbled everything and everyone but the last spell failed. Fabian O’Neill died at 12.55 today. He was 49 years old. His nightmare, alcohol, took him away on Christmas day. In Montevideo, from a bed in the Medica Uruguaya clinic. The former playmaker from Cagliari, Juventus and Perugia was hospitalized last Saturday. Last terrible episode of an uphill life, on and off the field.
Fabian, originally from Paso de los Toros, where he was born on October 14, 1973, had been in intensive care for a few days. The attempts of the doctors to keep him alive and save him from the clutches of an advancing and relentless liver disease were useless. El mago, as he was called, is gone alone. After spending the last few years on a friend’s farm who had offered him a job, herdsman, a bed and hot meals. Talented, dribbling and “bailado” football moves, very docile feet, O’Neill was born in football in the youth team of Nacional. In Montevideo he made his debut in the first team in 1992: a special season that ended with the victory of the championship. In November 1995 Massimo Cellino seizes the moment and Fabian arrives at Cagliari.
With the first salaries, he buys a Porsche Carrera: “I’ll show you around, you’ll have fun,” he says cheerfully to reporters. Giovanni Trapattoni, then at the helm of the Sardinians, tows him: “You can only go around in the car after you have scored ten goals!”. At Cagliari O’Neill signed 120 appearances, four seasons in Serie A and one in Serie B. The tally is 12 goals. In 2000 he moved to Juventus. The Juventus club makes Cellino happy: 18 billion lire ends up in the rossoblù coffers plus the loan from Raffaele Ametrano. But in Turin (14 appearances) things won’t go well. The setting becomes complicated, the harsh climate doesn’t favor it, alcohol is an enemy that is never completely defeated. At the 2002 repair market he was sold to Perugia, with Davide Baiocco going to black and white.
In Umbria, the Grifoni coach, Serse Cosmi, describes it like this: “I’ve never coached such a strong player!”. But inconstancy and a touch of character weakness have never led O’Neill to the levels possible thanks to an immeasurable talent. From Perugia he returns to Cagliari. It is the last Italian step. But the feeling with a land and a fan base that had immediately adopted him, does not leaven. Fabian is sad and insecure. He drinks, always over the top. Farewell to Italy is inevitable. He returns to Uruguay to wear the Nacional shirt again. It will be an epilogue without infamy and without praise. There is no longer any trace of his tiptoe dribbling, unpredictable plays, no-look assists. In his career there are also 19 tokens and 2 goals with the Celeste.
He left professional football in 2003 at the age of 29. Since then, a succession of hospitalizations and detoxification periods, never completed. Last November, his health conditions worsened. The first signs of the advance of evil and the precipitation of the situation come from the Uruguayan reporter, Alberto Kesman. “It’s news we never want to hear, but right now a friend of his informs me that Fabian O’Neill is in intensive care at Medica Uruguaya and the doctors are trying to save his life. O’Neill has always been too good to others and mean to himself. God help him to survive” the tweet posted by Kesman last week. The habit of drinking beat the juggler. He threw him to the ground and put him under the knife. But even after the surgery and with an iron list of bans, Fabiano O’Neill was able to get back on his feet. A bad dribble left him no way out.
