The tragic life of Negro Cáceres, the former National Team player who survived a gunshot to the head and made the news again for the death of his partner

Fernando Caceres (54) was on the front pages of the newspapers again this Monday. Your partner, Raquel Candia45, died after falling from the seventh floor of a building in Ramos Mejía in a confusing episode that could not yet be clarified by investigators. Far gone are those times when he shone as a central defender and which led him to be, with the help of Alfio Coco Basilechampion of the America’s Cup with the Argentine National Team in 1993 and until playing the United States World Cup 1994the one where they cut off his legs Diego Maradona. Life, however, dealt blows and more blows to him. Negro once he walked away from professional football.

Cáceres, who said that he had been born on the poor side of San Isidrohad made a good name for himself thanks to baseball to leave behind the shortcomings he had had as a child. His name began to be heard in 1985 as part of the Under 16 National Team that had as figures: Hugo Maradona y Fernando Redondo who played a South American in Argentina.

He had been trained in Argentinos Juniors and there he appeared in First. He broke it. He was a fast defender, with good timing and a good aerial game and better footing. From there he jumped to River in the times of Daniel Passarella DT and the Millionaire opened the doors of Europe. Disembarked in Zaragoza and it went very well. But after three seasons, in the times of 1 to 1 he returned to Argentina to play in the Boca of Carlos Salvador Bilardocon Maradona y Claudio Paul Caniggia like faces of a team full of figures.

He only played a handful of games with the blue and gold and returned to La Liga in Spain. First in Valencia, then in Celta de Vigo – where he left an enormous mark – and later in Córdoba, in the Second Division. He returned in 2005 to play for Independiente and then wanted to close the circle at Bicho de La Paternal, but his knee wouldn’t let him. His career closed with 722 games and 32 goals in clubs and 18 appearances in the National Team with one goal.

Everything was perfect for Cáceres after a phenomenal career. But in 2009, two years after retiring due to torn ligaments, his life was twisted forever. He was assaulted in Ciudadela by a gang of teenagers who wanted to steal his BMW in which he was traveling with a friend. He resisted and was attacked with bullets. A projectile pierced his right eye and fractured the base of his skull. It seemed irreversible.

The doctors at the Carrillo Hospital made him avoid death. The twists and turns of this life full of labyrinths: one of the surgeons who saved his life was Juan Carlos Cruzwho in August 2023 was shot in the head by three criminals in front of his house in Morón.

Cáceres, back in 2009, fought for his life for two months at the Carrillo Hospital. He lost his eye. He was left confined to a wheelchair. But fate seemed cruel to him. In 2013 he was the victim of a break-in at his house in Ramos Mejía and they stole all the money he had saved to continue with the recovery that had begun four years before. The criminals beat him and looted him.

A year before it had also been in the news. For worse. A former partner – with whom he had lived since 1995 and whom he had married in 2000 – had denounced him in court for not complying with the agreement he had reached after a conflictive divorce. He claimed that he owed the child support fee.

“I was by his side at all times, in total it was three months and four days with him at the Ramón Carrillo Hospital, where the other did not even appear”explained his ex-wife and added: “I remember that he had gone to Spain for 20 days, and when he arrived the boys asked him to come see them and he told them that he was going to rest because he was exhausted, that he would see them the next day. And then he went out with her and what happened happened.”.

For more than a decade, the former soccer player never gave up and did all the recovery treatments possible to get back to being. He was able to return to work in football. He founded his own club, which did not prosper, in Zárate and, for a time, he was part of the lower divisions of Argentinos Juniors, the club where he trained, as coach. However, he was never able to walk again without help.

“I have to walk again, I dream about it every day. I wake up knowing that there will be a morning of training that depends on me. If I don’t do it, no one will, and that is the motivation I have to continue living,” he told the journalist. Lucas Gatti In an interview published in Infobae in March 2022.

When asked about the misfortune he had to experience, Cáceres did not mince words. “Why not me? Why can’t it happen to me if I’m a person like anyone else? I won the day I said: “This happened to me, I accept it.” I overcame it to go forward and not go back. Today I can do two steps, tomorrow I will do another one. When I accepted everything that had happened to me, I had already won. Because he knew what he could do and how to do it. I understood where I was and where to locate myself. I assimilated it little by little until I reached the point of knowing that I am very calm and well. Everything I have to do depends on me, no one else. I manage the times, the things too. That’s comfortable for me.”

His name, as time went by, had stopped appearing in the news. Until this first Monday in December when he was once again the protagonist of a misfortune. For reasons that are still unknown, Candia fell from the seventh floor into the patio of a neighboring house. The only person who was in the apartment at the time of the incident was Cáceres. The homicide prosecutor of La Matanza, Carlos Arribas, is trying to determine at this time If it was a femicide, a suicide or an accidental death. The former footballer, in principle, is not charged.

The victim’s mother and two brothers raised questions about the episode that ended with their relative dead and not only did they denounce that there were situations of gender violence between the couple, but they were convinced that “someone killed her.”

“They lived very conflictive lives. Always with violence. It was a pretty aggressive relationship on his part. Very dramatic. There are witnesses and neighbors here who told us that there was violence before and that they approached the balcony and pushed her and she fell into the precipice.”said one of the brothers, whose name was not indicated, in statements to the media.