In the first days of 2024, we will look back on the eventful hockey year of 2023 for the very last time. We will publish the stories that we remember most this week. Today part six, is about the tribute in Chile last November to the deceased goalkeeper Claudia Schüler.
Claudia Schüler – the greatest Chilean hockey player of all time – was behind the bar at the 2022 world championship in the Wagener Stadium in Amsterdam. Eight months later she was dead. She was beautifully commemorated in Santiago on Wednesday evening during the opening ceremony of the 21 World Cup.
The hockey stadium in Santiago – Chile’s Wagener Stadium – was still called Estadio Nacional on Wednesday afternoon. Since Wednesday evening it has been called Estadio Claudia Schüler.
The index fingers of her former coach with the Chilean national team, Sergio Vigil (58), point to the sky on Wednesday evening. He’s having a hard time. There are tears in his eyes. The lump in his throat is so big that it blocks his voice. He can barely talk anymore. He glances up and addresses his former pupil directly. ‘Thank you, Claudia. Thank you for letting me get to know you. You were a fantastic person. I miss you everyday. I love you. Gracias .’
A tumour in her eye ended her life
We interviewed Schüler (more than 200 international matches) via Google Meet a few weeks before the 2022 World Cup . There was nothing wrong with her then. The questions were not about death, but simply about hockey. About how much she was looking forward to playing in a sold-out Wagener Stadium against the Netherlands. About her four stopped shootouts during the Pan-American Cup against the United States, which allowed Chile to qualify for the World Cup for the first time in history.
Schüler instantly became the figurehead of the sport. But the questions were also about her first international match. As a sixteen-year-old girl she made her debut in the national team. Not as a goalkeeper, but then as an attacker. It made her laugh herself.
Without her knowing it, a tumour was already growing in her body during the world championship. A month after the World Cup, Schüler visited a doctor. She had developed problems with her eye. The investigation ended in bad news. A malignant tumour grew in her eye. Metastases were found in several places in her body, including in her liver. She had to have her left eye surgically removed. On December 19, 2022, she announced on Instagram that she was ill. “I hope I overcome it,” she wrote, fighting. Claudia Schüler died on March 27, 2023. Barely 35 years old.
A beautiful tribute in the stadium in Santiago
Honouring a deceased person can be left to the Chileans. Schüler will be remembered on Wednesday evening in front of a few hundred spectators in the main stand. It is special to witness that. Fourteen people stand shoulder to shoulder next to each other on the field. Her father. Her mother. Her friend. The president of the Chilean Hockey Federation. National coach Sergio Vigil. And all kinds of other people who care deeply about the deceased goalkeeper.
Almost half of them receive a microphone in their hands. Unfortunately, their speeches are in Spanish. But it is clear that they are beautiful words. Every time a speech is completed, applause rings out from the stands.
But the climax is yet to come. The video screen in the corner of the field suddenly turns on. None other than Schüler himself appears on screen. The audience immediately treats her to applause. It is without a doubt the most emotional moment of the evening.
Images are shown of her career. First moving images. Fragments of, among other things, she stopped shoot-outs in the Pan-American Cup. But also from her saves at the World Cup in Amsterdam. Then pictures of her appear. Emotional piano music sounds. Two men in the stands – both wearing a black shirt with the name Schüler on the back – cannot keep it dry.
“This was the most beautiful moment of my life,” her former coach Sergio Vigil says a little later. Goosebumps are still on his arms. ‘Claudia was the greatest player of all time in Chilean hockey. It’s wonderful that the public got to see her keep goal. It’s wonderful that the stadium is named after her. All teams that will play here will gain strength from that. From now on they no longer have to do it alone. From now on they will do it together with Claudia.’
by Hockey.nl
