“Morientes shouted: ‘Did you see those flames?'” | Relief

Yesterday Real went to Lille, and everything went, as the classics said, within the norm. However, one cannot help but think how many times an event lingers and conditions behavior from that moment on. If this event is also traumatic, it usually causes irrational fear, which turns into anxiety, tachycardia or blockade. Thus, what may be a relaxing experience for many becomes a drama for those affected by this panic. Especially if you cannot avoid trance and at work you have to deal with it often. This applies to football players suffering from aerophobia. Usually, The seed of this terror of the airplane lies in some in-flight accident that destroyed all traces of confidence..

The newspaper’s archives are full of examples of players who refused to enter the airport. Dennis Bergkamp’s disgust is well known. whose intransigence saw him absent from many of Arsenal’s long trips. He once even drove 1,600 kilometers from London to Leverkusen to help artillerymen in a European Cup match in 2000. Lee Dixon, a former teammate of the fine striker, told how it all started: “Dennis had a terrible flight when he went to the 1994 World Cup in the USA with the rest of the Dutch team. One of the engines suffered a serious failure. It seems like something mystical, but he almost doesn’t even want to talk about it.

. It was for this reason that he decided never to board a plane again in his life.” He retired from football prematurely, tired of traveling to away games by car or boat.

The thousands-of-foot incident on the Real Madrid plane also affected several passengers on the flight, which departed Moscow nearly 23 years ago.: Cesar Sanchez, Ivan Helguera, Oscar Mignambres… October 30, 2001In the Champions League match, the Whites met Lokomotiv Moscow. The day turned out to be unsuccessful, Del Bosque’s team lost with a score of 2:0. However, defeat was the least of the disappointments. At the end of the meeting, the expedition headed to the airport and picked up Futura flight 7642 unaware that they would end up facing an emergency landing during which many feared the worst.

After ten minutes of broadcasting, Commander Jesus Aguilar took the microphone and announced: “Gentlemen, we inform you that the bird’s impact on the left engine during takeoff caused a breakdown and we will have to return.”. The impact occurred during takeoff, into the turbine. As it gained altitude, it began to emit smoke, and the pilot had to turn around. “It was an episode that touched me. The plane began to smell strange and a lot of smoke was visible from one wing. A bird got on the plane!”

– recalls Minyambres from Relevo.

Elguera’s fear, Valdano’s “joke”…

The ex-lateral describes the moment as if he is living it right now. This happens with events that are traumatic. In his case, he did. “I remember Morientes shouting: ‘Did you see those flames? Have you seen him?about how the pilot came out and told us that we had to turn around because the plane was damaged… At that moment we were in the air, the engines were working at full power, up, up… And suddenly it stopped them completely. “We all thought we were falling!”– he admits. A resident of Madrid witnessed a scene of real panic: “Cesar, the doorman, was very upset. And Ivan Helgera, imagine. He had a great fear of flying and always traveled in the cockpit because it gave him more confidence, I suppose.”.

A year earlier, the Cantabrian was again overtaken by panic. It could have been more, as Tote Relevo said: “In September 2000 we went to Leverkusen and dived two thousand meters! I saw the flight attendants running, that already makes you even more nervous. “Everything is falling, Helguera is standing in front of me crying because she must have had a panic attack.”

Witnesses present at the Moscow trance assure the newspaper that more than one decomposed. Like strength coach Javier Mignano who ended up vomiting. Others, like Jorge Valdano, then Real Madrid CEO, were more in control of their nerves. Although upon landing he was given statements with a nervous laugh: “I think the counter maneuver lasted half an hour, but they tell me it was ten minutes… It was fear, not what happened on Sunday against Barça.” Commander Jesus Aguilar’s version was less dramatic: “To say that someone was reborn would be an exaggeration. This has already happened to me another time.”

For Mignambres, the episode deepened his respect for flying: “This journey was difficult for me. He has already survived other difficult moments, such as the turbulence in Bilbao. All this makes you very upset when traveling on an airplane. In the end, everything is psychological. But this profession, in which you have to set foot in so many airports… And now even more, with this calendar and so many competitions.” Madrid faces up to seven this season. The first one is in the bag (European Super Cup) and the League is still up early, this Wednesday they will play their second game of the new Champions League in Lille as part of the team’s first European tour, which, fortunately, did not bring any surprises.